


sun in her step/moon in her mind

by aetervi



Category: Naruto
Genre: (how is that not a tag: smh), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Astronomy, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Ghosts, Haruno Clan-centric, Haruno Sakura-centric, Kekkei Genkai | Bloodline Limit, Strong Female Characters, Strong Haruno Sakura, act one: complete, actually:, aka: what happens if Inner Sakura is a whole other person + some other stuff, also: the original characters are there so i don't cram this story full of epithets, ill try not to rehash canon too too much, we’re in for a long ride
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 11:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25469698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetervi/pseuds/aetervi
Summary: They know not of the light in her hair, glimmering oddly as she walks, for nobody thinks to look. They have never seen the moon in her eyes, irises flashing a brilliant yellow on occasion, often when they talk behind her back. They will never see the true parts of her, aware, awake, more authentic than whatever they have assigned to her. They are so eager to push their own misconceptions onto her, so she will grant their wish, acting the fool and hiding her skill underneath a thin veil of incompetence, so easy to see past, if only they try. They never do and the moon questions whether they ever will.She does not really care either way.Alternatively, Sakura is the sun, shining blindingly bright with her moon by her side, and the Haruno family is much more than what they seem.
Comments: 134
Kudos: 421





	1. prologue: alive

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello: welcome to this...thing. Yeah, I don't really know what to call it. Anyways: this is an AU if Inner Sakura was something completely different and...not just a compartmentalization by Pinky over here, because I was thinking about her and how odd it was that Inner just poofed in part II - I get it, I just don't like it. Oh, and + some wacky stuff because I love the idea of Sakura having a kekkei genkai but not mokuton because it's slightly overused and I don't understand how she even gets it in half the stories. 
> 
> (Makes no sense: you don’t catch the mokuton via exposure to Tsunade.
> 
> It's my first time writing fanfiction so any and all writing advice/tips are welcome (please, help.)
> 
> Enjoy!

(☀|☾ )

Upon first glance, one would be inclined to write Haruno Sakura off as an entitled, spoiled brat, too soft to be a shinobi. They might say that she’s not motivated enough, that she’s more focused on a boy than her aim. Their assessment might mention all her character flaws; not confident enough, shallow, generally unprepared. Someone might read this report, look at her, take her at face value, and dismiss her immediately. Overall, they would probably be right to do so if Sakura had acted like such, but in their quest to categorize, they miss what they can not see and they judge her on what they can.

She is four when she starts to shine, seven when she starts writing in the journal and in her teens when she gives up the facade. 

They know not of the light in her hair, glimmering oddly as she walks, for nobody thinks to look. They have never seen the moon in her eyes, irises flashing a brilliant yellow on occasion, often when they talk behind her back. They will never see the true parts of her, aware, awake, more authentic than whatever they have assigned to her. They are so eager to push their own misconceptions onto her, so she will grant their wish, acting the fool and hiding her skill underneath a thin veil of incompetence, so easy to see past, if only they try. They never do and the moon questions whether they ever will. 

She does not really care either way.

She is the sun and she pays them no mind, the moon in her ears whispering about her light and the stars. She outshines them all, even as she wakes, the slightest sliver of light appearing above the horizon, the stars disappearing in front of her very eyes. She need not care what most of them think, her moon by her side every step of the way. Though, unlike her lunar counterpart, Sakura cares for a handful of the stars, not wanting to eclipse them at every turn, even as they insult her.

‘Civilian’, they say, rolling their eyes, scoffing as she walks by. ‘Weak’, they whisper, sneaking glances at the would-be ninja. ‘Useless,’ they taunt, even the ones she had trusted the most.‘ How would she do anything with such noticeable hair?’ ‘She’s barely got any chakra?’ Many questions, none of which are said to her face; they speak when she is turned.

Luckily, the eyes in the back of her head are always alert, shining amber eyes and black hair. They look out for her, always watching but never truly alive until the sun has long since set. As the moon rises in the night sky, she wakes, always lurking beneath her skin, prowling and on the hunt, like a predator to Sakura’s prey.

She’s the one to take care of her other half; she lives to protect her own and to hurt to protect. She has no purpose beyond Sakura, no past nor future that is not related to the pink haired girl, though through her mission, she finds herself and grows into her own.

Where the sun shines bright, happy and carefree, the moon must exist for the sun to seem much brighter in comparison. She is but a reflection of the sun, lesser and yet somehow more at the same time. It is her punishment for not being able to protect those she loves, for not being able to complete her life’s mission.

She is aware of her place out of the two, though she does not mind. It’s selfish in a sense, for she knows that without the sun, the moon can not be seen, the light in the sky extinguished, her very presence forgotten to all. They will never forget the sun, even after she is gone, but the memory of the pale moon in the night would seem paltry in comparison to the blinding light of the sun at noon, giving life to those below. She would know. Although, there is some part of her that does what she does, not for her own, but for her other. She cherishes her other half, knows her inside and out, and she sees no better way to spend her time than by protecting the one light in her life.

That is why she must be stronger; the strongest, for she needs strength and power if she wishes to protect her light. To shield her from all those who would wish to harm her, from her enemies to her allies. She trusts no one, except herself and her other. Betrayal is something that she is intimately familiar with, for the moon will disappear once a month, and when she does, the others in the night sky will shine brighter, bigger, bolder, to try and take her place. And yet, every month she crawls back, resigned but not defeated. But she knows that the sun has never dealt with the sting, the anger, the rage, and so she must learn the signs, the malice lurking beneath the surface of all the others. 

For they are stars, shining bright, but they pale in comparison to her other’s light, even seeming dim at their brightest. Many will try to take her light, even killing in the process. So she guards her other half’s heart with her life, well aware that losing it may mean her demise.

It may seem tedious to those who are stars in their own right, for those who only mind their own shimmer, but she would have it no other way. 

It is who she is.

(☀|☾ )

In one world, Sakura might have been born into a civilian family with neither of her parents approving of her choice to try and become a shinobi. They refuse to let her join and she runs away from home, getting killed when she sneaks out of the village. In another, she doesn’t try to become a shinobi, her parents too harsh and disapproving, so she crushes the throat of her desires and her dreams underneath her foot, not letting up until she feels it sputter and die. She would take up her family’s business and wonder what could have been if she had tried. In a different world, the one that we are most familiar with, she joins the academy, grows as a person, though it seems like too little, too late. She ends up in the life she wants, married to the ‘love of her life’. Though, as time passes by, he rarely visits and Sakura starts to wonder whether it was worth it. Whether it was worth it to go through so much for so little. She loves her child, but it’s not enough, not when so many are dead and lost to her. So she stares out of the window at night, at the moon and she thinks about other paths and new beginnings.

_(The moon, the original, the first one in the sky, looks at the pink haired woman and has an epiphany. She has dealt with many stars before, the ones who would seek to take her place in the sky as the brightest at night. She knows she’s nothing compared to the sun, but the night is her terrain and she will defend it to the last. But she’s been through so much, she can’t take anymore. So she stares at Sakura, baring her desires and her dreams to this enigmatic pink haired woman who’s so happy and yet so sad.)_

_(Sakura stares back and smiles.)_

[☀]

She is brought into the world as half the person she could be in another world. Perhaps, in another place, she might have been born healthy. But here, she is born on the day after the night of the brightest, fullest moon that the village has seen in the last hundred years. Her mother goes into labor early and the first thing she sees is a glimpse of the sun shining through the window. It imprints in the back of her mind and she will never forget it, even as memories younger than it fade into obscurity.

Born at dawn, her cries are pitiful and her chakra weak, faint enough that the medic-nin says she won’t survive until the next sun rises. Her breaths grow shallower and more quiet and the Haruno household weeps for what could have been, praying for a miracle, even as she stops breathing for a fateful ten minutes when the sun sets and all is black, the moon rising late, seeming as if being held back by a strange force.

The medic-nin pronounces her dead on the scene, the moon still not up yet, and leaves the heartbroken family to grieve, heading home for the day. As her mother nears the bassinet, tears streaking down her face, she lifts the blanket placed by the medic, if only to see her child one last time before she must part ways. Little Sakura, with her short pink fuzz and little green eyes closed shut, her face eerily calm like in sleep, too calm for a child. Her mother is about to break into tears once more, her dad glancing out of the window, seeing the moon peer over the horizon, a full one, bright and round.

And the miracle happens. Sakura gasps to life, wheezing and coughing, crying and screaming, and her parents stare in disbelief, not only at their child coming back to life, but for her new found hair and eyes, very obviously different from her pink locks and her emerald green eyes. No, the child in front of them is something very different, sharp yellow eyes and jet black hair. 

The baby opens her eyes, unfocused and unseeing. She has passed her first test, the trial of the horizon, the one to see if she is worthy of carrying such a burden, of wielding such a blessing.

She is Sakura, but she is something _other_ at the same time. Her parents share a look and come to a decision together. They will not tell anybody of what they have seen unless they must, for it is the best way to protect her from danger and those who would seek to use her for their own gain. She is their daughter, no matter what she looks like, no matter what happens to her and they will not let anybody harm her.

Sakura falls asleep to a lullaby sung in her ear and the moon over her head, as if to tell her of something. Both sides of her.

The night passes with little fanfare, her parents tired from the ordeal and Sakura tired from the trial thrust upon her. When they wake up from their makeshift bed next to the cradle in the living room, they glance towards their new child, still unsure if the last night had actually happened. They see a pink haired, green eyed child, like their own but unlike the other. Rushing to check their baby, they sigh in relief as a pulse beats underneath their fingers, little lungs expanding to take in air. Woken from their handling, the baby in their hands blinks her stunningly green eyes. Her parents cry in relief, for even as their tears stream down their cheeks, they are happy.

The one mistake they do make is assuming that this is a one time thing.

(It’s not.)

As the sun sets once more, Sakura does not stop breathing again, though she does become more lethargic, and as the sun sets once more on the Village Hidden in the Leaves, a pink haired, green eyed child disappears and a black haired, yellow eyed one appears in her place.

The transitions get calmer and less dangerous each day and by the time that Sakura is a month old, she no longer suffers from the side effects of ‘switching’, as her parents call it. It’s odd to say the least, but her parents do not complain, for their child is alive, even if she does not seem entirely whole.

It’s a price they’re willing to pay.

  
  


{☾}

She comes into existence when the first sliver of moonlight hits the village, shining and giving life to Sakura anew. She feels her other half, the yang to its yin. The body to her mind. Sakura’s inner voice is much quieter than her own and she worries for the health and well being of her other. She contemplates her own existence and wonders why she has been sent here, created from the energy of the moon, along with something more. She has no memories or knowledge, only how to think, not how to speak. She can think in the most basic sense of the word, though the moon whispers to her that she will develop quickly, quicker than her other half, so that she may help Sakura.

Her thoughts come with another thing attached: the compulsion to stare at the moon until it sets, which is...annoying but she shrugs it off. It is like the moon itself calls to the newborn being, comforting words mixed with a stern tone. _Protect your own by any means, though anything else you do is up to you._ The newborn replies with a small nod, almost unnoticeable, and she can feel the moon’s satisfaction, before the voice goes quiet, wishing her good luck as it leaves. Silence.

She stares out of the window facing its bassinet, closing its eyes and instinctively feeling the moon rise and fall in the inky black sky. It is what it is, the being supposes, wiggling its toes and fingers. She is stuck in an unfamiliar body, and as she tries to whisper, she finds that her tongue will not cooperate, making babbling noises and mumbles instead of anything understandable. Giving up after a few tries, she tries to sit up, only for her (their?) parents to hush them quietly. Lying back down, she sighs, tracking the sluggish movement and breathing of a soul brought back, and goes to sleep, closing her eyes despite the need to never let the moon out of her sight.

When she wakes, the sun high in the sky, she finds that the other soul with whom she shares this body is now stronger and more active. Strong enough in fact, that the being is pushed to the backseat, unable to control even a single part of their body. She chalks the issue up to its power being so deeply and tightly intertwined with the moon and all its energy now dormant, just as the moon is, overshadowed by the sun. Internally shrugging, she pauses, before deciding to wait and observe from the shadows of a newborn’s mind, though she doubts it will be any help, considering that their hearing and their sight has not yet fully developed. Oh well.

She can tell that her other can detect her and perhaps it even recognizes her, aware of the now symbiotic relationship between the two. She has not developed to the point of being able to communicate with her and the being within resolves to teach its other half how to communicate. She needs to learn it too and when she thinks that, she can feel Sakura’s attention turning towards her, almost as if intrigued. 

Interesting.

Interesting indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: I'm back (or well, I never left, so...you're back, I guess.) The prologue's over and we'll be diving into sakura's childhood for a chapter or two because I need to flesh out the history of the Haruno family. (Edit: we’ll be here for a while, folks.)
> 
> Anyways, I have the next few chapters written so you can expect like two-three weeks of proper uploading before i have to start writing. I do have the plot basically planned out, but there are certain areas that are still foggy so suggestions are fun. Writing advice is always appreciated and if you find a grammar error or something stupid that makes no sense, please tell me so i don't find it myself and smash my head into a wall out of embarrassment.
> 
> If you enjoyed, leave a kudos and bookmark it if you want more :D


	2. act one, chapter one: beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We were a clan,” her father whispers, almost dropping the book in shock. “We were a clan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! i'm back (don't worry, i'm surprised too): I was going to write more of her childhood, but do you really want to hear about Sakura learning to walk? Or would you rather have some Academy and Wave Arc action? Yeah. that's what I thought. (Edit: whoops.)
> 
> Also: we start to learn more about the Haruno family! wow *sparkles and confetti* 
> 
> Anyways: enjoy!

(☾ )

It has been three and a half years since she has been born, though it feels like much longer. Her hair has grown out, down to her shoulders, switching from pink to black as the day ends, and back once the sun has risen. Her face has lost a little of the baby fat it came with and her vocabulary increases each day, voraciously sucking up information while Sakura goes to the park to play. 

The moon also did not lie when it said that she would develop quickly, for she has already learned how to communicate through listening to their parents talk. Her intellect rapidly asserts itself and makes itself known through an intense urge to read everything around them; to absorb any and all information she can find. Though born without the ability to speak and with the knowledge of a real newborn, her self-awareness quickly makes her a prodigy at her age and it passes onto Sakura as well.

(As such, Sakura learns to talk and walk at an almost prestigious rate, being able to do both at a few months shy of one year, and her parents clap when she takes her first steps and when she says her first word. It’s peculiar though, the first thing she says is not being “mama” or “papa” or the other common words that tend to be spoken first. Sakura watches the sunset and blinks her eyes, sleep trying to overtake her, and that’s when she mumbles out a slurred word. “Bright,” the pink haired girl gets out, before closing her eyes and drifting to sleep, before she _Switches_ , the moon starting to rise as the sun starts to sleep.)

She spends her days talking to Sakura in her head and when Sakura turns two, the pink-haired girl starts replying. It’s nice, she supposes, though she is worried about how the other children perceive her other half. It’s also mostly her fault, for if Sakura was a ‘normal’ child (in the barest sense of the word), she would probably be fine at socializing. But as it is, Sakura hasn’t mastered being able to talk to her inside their head, so she mumbles the answers out. And while it’s okay for her because she can hear the answers, the other children just see a small child talking to herself.

They could blame it on an imaginary friend (though she is the farthest thing from imaginary), but children, as they do, judge her for it. Unlike the adults who say “She’ll grow out of it, don’t worry,” the children laugh behind their backs, believing something to be wrong with Sakura. “Crazy,” they say, jeering as Sakura leaves for home after a long play date. “Messed up,” they whisper, snickering as they walk past, believing that the wind will carry their words away.

She knows that Sakura can’t (or _doesn’t_ ) hear it, but that doesn’t mean that _she_ can’t. One day, Sakura’s senses will get better or one of the children will slip up and Sakura will be exposed to the sheer amount of judgement, of malice that little kids can hold, unaware of the world around them and the repercussions of their actions.

All of her attention goes to Sakura, whether it's to protect her or to tell her who to avoid or what to say to get away. She’s aware that she’s babying the pinkette, but she believes it’s for a good reason. She wishes to keep that innocent glimmer in Sakura’s eyes for as long as possible; to keep her in her bubble of childish naivety so that she may stay a kid for longer. Her schedule as soon as Sakura is able to be slightly autonomous is basically: ‘wake up’, watch Sakura wake up, pick out Sakura’s outfit for the day, watch Sakura eat breakfast, watch Sakura head out to play… you get the point. 

And so, you could say that she’s fiercely protective of what’s hers. Sakura is the only thing she’s ever really known in her three and a half years of life, so it’s natural to want to guard and safekeep the pinkette.

 _(And little Sakura is just the_ _cutest_ _thing. It’s like her maternal instincts are on overdrive.)_

_(Not that she’d admit that to anybody.)_

(☀|☾ )

Sakura becomes aware of the voice in her head as she grows up. It is a constant fixture in her head. When she tries to talk to it for the first time, she can sense its surprise, before it replies.

_“Hello there.”_

“Hi! What’s your name?” Sakura says out loud to the voice in her head.

The woman’s voice in her head has no body, but Sakura can envision a young girl, nearly identical to her if not for the black hair and yellow eyes. Sakura can feel the emotions running through the other girl’s head, confusion, thoughtfulness, apprehension, bewilderment, before she responds.

 _“I do...not have a name.”_ She says, sounding a bit sheepish.

Well, that can’t do. Sakura’s friends all need names, or else how would she tell them apart? That’s silly. “I guess we’ll have to give you a name then!” The other child in her head hesitantly nods, waiting for Sakura to continue with her train of thought.

Sakura nods, clapping her hands together as if coming to a monumental decision. “I will call you…” She can feel the other girl’s wariness and excitement of being named. _“...Inner!”_

There's a pause and then, _“Inner? Why?”_

“Well, cause you’re part of me but not me! So you’re the inner part of me, like the brain and stuff.” Sakura says, confident with her hands on her hips, raising her head in fake haughtiness. “I’m the outer parts, you’re everything else.”

 _“Alright.”_ is the answer she receives from the other girl, _“Can’t argue with that. Inner it is.”_

“Cool!”

(☾ )

It’s when Sakura turns four that something changes. She stays awake later on her birthday, wanting to ‘be a big kid and not sleep so early’ and she does not go to sleep, even as the moon shines bright over the horizon. She feels Sakura fall asleep and she’s about to shake her other half, to make sure she wakes up and sleeps in her bed instead of the dirty ground outside. When Sakura doesn’t wake up at her nudging, she resigns herself to comforting a bruised and hurt Sakura tomorrow.

And then their body falls onto the ground and she is hit with an unfamiliar feeling. Pain. She’d been aware that they (her and Sakura) were two different ‘people’, but before, all the pain, all the injuries, had been transferred over to Sakura when she woke up, never registering to the girl, so they really are separate now. To be fair, she had never actually had much time to control their body as if it were her own, so she’s not going to pass this opportunity up. If she’s stronger, then Sakura will be too.

She climbs trees, runs a few laps around the house, silently so she doesn’t wake her parents, and spends the entire night training, slumping onto the bed in exhaustion right before the first rays of sunshine crawl through the window facing her bed. Her muscles protest with all their might and as she shifts to a more comfortable position on the bed, she pulls something and lets out a loud wail instinctively. And after that, it’s like the floodgates have burst, and she can’t stop crying for a good ten minutes. Luckily, her parents don’t hear her after the first noise, their room too far and the walls too thick for the sound to make it, for them to hear muffled crying.

Calming down, she melts into the mattress, boneless and unable to move. The sun is rising by now and she fades into the background of Sakura’s mind once more, tired but victorious, and tries to take a nap. She’ll continue tomorrow. 

It’s not training, not in the traditional sense. She’s not really trying to improve anything, just trying to see how much this body can take. Actual training would require Sakura to cooperate and agree to start learning, and the main attacks they could learn would be taught in the Academy, like katas and jutsus. But for now she can’t do that, with no materials, no scrolls, no _clue_ how to use chakra. So for now, just testing certain limits.

[☀]

Sakura wakes up the day after her fourth birthday, completely unharmed and well-rested. Glancing at the walls of her room, she’s confused as to how she got here. The last thing she remembers is trying to stay awake as the moon started to rise in the sky.

 _Wait_.

Checking on the other girl in her mind, she finds a tired, sleeping child. When she tries to talk to her, Sakura gets no response, which is odd, considering she’s never felt the girl sleep and she’s always replied when Sakura has asked a question. She pokes the girl in the side in her mind and is surprised when she feels pain ripple through the same spot on her body. She checks under her shirt, but there’s no injury, nothing that could have caused the pain.

Huh.

(☾ )

She’s been testing her limits for the past few weeks during her hours and she’s gotten some concrete results. Since she doesn’t see through Sakura’s eyes, her ‘sight’ consists of general feelings around her. This means she can sense people based on strong emotions and threats based on Sakura’s instincts and disruptions in the wind. Though if the people aren’t feeling anything strongly or if the danger is properly concealed, she’s basically flying blind. She flexes her ‘vision’ and not for the first time or the last, she curses the fact that they only start teaching chakra control in the Academy. She’s sure that a clan child would have already gotten help.

Anyways, she has the power to stretch her ‘vision’ in a circle around Sakura, a few meters wide in diameter at the moment. She says at the moment because over the time she’s been testing her abilities, she’s noticed that her circle has grown a few millimeters. She also becomes more aware of the world around her at night, though she can summon things even during the day. 

Being able to communicate with Sakura is helpful too, considering she still can’t control the body during the day, so if they get into a fight, it’s still up to Sakura to actually dodge, even if she can tell the pink-haired girl where the strike will be. 

This becomes painfully clear, both metaphorically and literally, when one of the bullies kicks the torture up a notch and punches Sakura in the face. She stumbles back in shock, her right cheek throbbing in pain, while the other kid starts to wind up for another hit. 

She thrashes in her ‘cage’, yelling for Sakura to let her out to protect her. Alas, Sakura’s mind is too jumbled, too shocked to actively pull back her subconscious suppression and so she can do nothing but scream to dodge left or right or duck or jump, only being able to watch as Sakura gets hit, gets hurt. The kid leaves and she checks over Sakura, looking for potential injuries. As far as she knows, Sakura has no broken bones, just bruises , and she sighs in relief.

Sakura is still crying, though she has sat up by now, having gotten up from the floor. Her hair and her dress are covered in dirt and dust from the ground, and her heart hurts for her other half (metaphorically, she’s still technically just a spirit), so pitiful and vulnerable.

She refuses to let something like this happen again. She’ll have to start training even more, and she’ll have to convince Sakura to cooperate. Though, from the beating she just got, she doubts it will be too difficult.

Sakura tries to stand up, to head home to treat her injuries, but hisses as her muscles strain and scream.

Inner mentally notes that they might have to wait a while for training, a few weeks or a month maybe. Sakura trips over a rock, scraping her hands and knees on the dirt. Inner winces. Scratch that, make it a month and a half, just for good measure.

(✫)

Haruno Sakura is a strange child, he concludes. Adjusting the mask on his face, the ANBU jumps down to peer through the window, feet silent as he lands on the ground. It is daytime now, the light shining on his white mask. He’s not quite sure why he’s even wearing it right now; he’s not on a mission for the Hokage, he’s here on his own. In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to know Sakura existed, but he had heard crying a few weeks ago and chose to check it out.

It was odd, because as a sensor type, you’d think he would have sensed her, but he didn’t, only getting a jumbled mess of _two_ chakra signatures instead of a harmonious wavelength, whole and complete. It’s been giving him a headache, so he’s decided to check it out.

He’s chosen the one time where both of her parents are gone, her mom at the grocery store and her dad on a business trip to Kiri. Heading into her room, he notices Sakura is not sleeping, like he had thought, but is instead staring at him, tranquil and calm. Her face and her arms are slightly bruised, though they seem faded and not like new injuries. Awkwardly waving his hand, he crouches down to talk to her.

“Well, hello there, kid.” He says, smiling under his mask. “How are you doing?”

Sakura only looks at him, unimpressed, a look that should not be on a four year old’s face. “A stranger is in my house.” It’s more a statement than a question and he notices how the kid says ‘my house’ and not ‘our house’ or ‘my parents’ house’. 

Shrugging, he pats the kid on her head. “I’m not a stranger, I’m ANBU!”

“Fine, then an ANBU _I don’t know_ is in my house.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “Happy?”

“Yup!” He lifts his mask a bit, just so Sakura can see his smile. “Next week, same time?” Without waiting for an answer, he shunshins away, landing on the roof, no other houses too close, with the Haruno house being relatively isolated. He’s about to leave when Sakura strolls out of the house, staring at him as soon as she’s in his field of view. 

She breaks into a random smile, and he swears her eyes glint a bright yellow for a second, before turning back into her normal emerald green eyes. “Don’t be a stranger, ANBU-san!” She screams, knowing that nobody else is close enough to hear her.

Heh. Fun kid.

[☀☀☀]

As she grows older, she says many words, but at the age of four, she gets into the habit of saying the word ‘sister’ after every few sentences. She also tends to mumble to herself and when her parents ask her who she’s talking to, she just puts a finger on her lips and shushes them, saying that her friend is a secret.

Her parents are understandably confused, considering she’s an only child, and for a second, her father entertains a strange idea and brings it up to her mother, after dinner as they’re cleaning the plates, Sakura already put to bed.

“Have you considered that maybe the transformation each night is another person?”

“Perhaps a sister, if Sakura is to be believed?” Her mother says, deep in thought. Sighing, she puts a clean bowl on the counter and dips her hands into the sink.

Her dad answers, equally baffled. “Like siamese twins?” Scratching his arm, he scrunches up his face. “That would make...some level of sense.”

Her mom shakes her head. “I guess.” Making a resigned face, she shrugs. “It seems like some ninja thing, for a shinobi.”

“Are you saying that we should send her to the Academy?” Her dad frets, worried for his only child. “It’s a bit early to think about that, isn’t it? Besides, it’s dangerous.”

Her mom glares at her dad for a second, before sighing. “We certainly can’t control it or teach her anything about it. Besides, we don’t know if there will be any issues in the future. Who knows when she’ll suddenly collapse and stop breathing again?” She stares at her hands. “I can’t have the thought of us possibly killing our only daughter, our precious child, because we were _afraid_.”

And so they agree to send her to the Academy, to see if she has any potential, for her sake. It’s only a few years until she’ll have to go and they lapse into an unusually somber mood at the thought of it. It’s odd for civilians to agree to send their children to the Academy, let alone be somewhat accepting of the fact that their children could die on a mission, but choose to do so anyways, but Sakura’s parents are resigned.

“But what if she doesn’t have any talent for the shinobi arts?” Her mother pipes up, conflicted.

Her dad puts a dry plate back into its place, before turning back to face his wife at the sink. “Well, then I guess we’ll go from there. But what are the odds that her ‘condition’ is due to something unreleased to ninja? All their abilities are just as odd and weird as hers, some even weirder. It has to be something the Academy can teach her, right?”

After a few moments of silence, her dad speaks up once more. “I know we haven’t told anybody about this yet, and we agreed we weren’t going to, but we should probably try to do some research on it.” 

“The library then?” Her mom says, not understanding where he’s going with this.

There’s a glint in his eyes when he points to the hallway leading deeper into their house. “The old family library.”

He dries his hands on a towel nearby, placing the last bowl where it should be. Shaking off the excess water on his hands, he smiles at his wife and gets a small one in return. They head out of the kitchen and to the ‘lobby’ of their huge mansion. It’s odd to have such a massive house as a civilian family, even bigger than some whole clan grounds, small as those clans may be. It’s slightly worse, considering all that’s left of the Haruno family in Konoha is them, three in number, only two born into the family.

On their way to the library, the house seems to twist and turn in front of them, though they both seem to dismiss it as just their eyes playing tricks on them this late into the night, the moon high in the sky by now. They finally reach the door, painted a bright crimson-like red, with a large white circle centered on the door. It's already creaked open and Sakura’s father heaves out a huge sigh of relief, though he doesn’t explain why. 

In the moonlit room, dusty and unused, there are no lights or torches inside, the only source of brightness being the moonlight shining in from the skylight in the middle of the ceiling, a circular window the same size as the table in the middle of the room. The light doesn’t stretch any further than that, the rest of the room unlit and dark. Her parents cannot see past the completely lit table, shining and reflecting the moonlight despite being made of a light brown wood. The walls are completely shrouded in shadow and darkness, though her dad can faintly see a slight color difference against the walls.

The room is completely empty, table barren, and her dad looks sheepish when her mom fixes him with an unimpressed glare.

“Tomorrow morning then, when it’s brighter outside.”

[☀☀☀]

They do end up coming back tomorrow, and just the night prior, the door is creaked open, a sliver of space between the door and the doorframe. When they enter, the skylight illuminates the room brightly enough that they can see the library in its entirety with no problem. There’s one book open on the table, despite neither parent having ever visited the library in their lives, let alone having read any of the books that chronicle the history of their long forgotten clan. It’s made of worn leather, tanned and dyed a bright orange to red ombre, like the sky as the sunsets. A bright yellow seal marks the cover, tucked near the bottom of the book's spine, intricate to the point that even the two civilians can sense something from it. There is a small ribbon, made of torn yellow silk that marks another page, not the one opened.

Her father picks up the book and reads.

[☀☀☀]

In another lifetime, her parents were simple merchants, and that’s all they would have ever been. Merchants all the way up to the first Haruno. But in this world, it’s different. Her family may be civilians now, but they were once something more. Not shinobi, not merchants, but nomads of a sort. They would roam all the countries, staying for a while but never for long enough to settle, though a few members would stay in each country. Until Konoha, this had been the norm for centuries. When they arrived, they chose to settle down, all thirty three of the clan settling down.

The book is like a diary of sorts, written in third person but very clearly from one person’s experience and perspective on things. The page that it’s currently open on is near the start of the book, with an introduction of sorts to their Konoha.

_“Kura-chan! It’s so sunny here! It’s perfect. Not as dreary as the boring old Mist. There’s nothing but foggy sadness there, no wonder everyone there looks miserable!” A young girl with bright orange hair, like tangerines, chirps excitedly to her sister._

_“Calm down, Tama. Besides, father has decided to settle down here. It’s the sunniest place he’s seen in a hundred years, he said, and so it will be good for our clan.” The rosy haired teen looks at the burgeoning new Hidden Village and the sunlight shining on their clan and their new home._

_There’s one face carved into the side of the mountain they’re currently standing on, waiting as the village’s leader scrambles to accept such a big addition. They aren’t the biggest clan in the village by any means, but they are a new addition, with no space being available for a new medium sized clan._

“We were a clan,” her father whispers, almost dropping the book in shock. “We were a clan.”

_“We’ll be fine.” Their mother states, matter of factly. She’s not a Haruno by birth, but she has the recognizable hair of one, her locks a bright shade of reddish-orange, like the flames of a burning heat. That tends to be how their clan marries, only to those with hair representing the sun. She claps her hands and fire blooms in between her palms, dancing and flickering._

_Another Haruno laughs, rolling around in the grass, basking in the sun. The light glints off his crimson red hair as he falls to the ground with a thump. Lying on his back, his face to the sun, he smiles. “Your mother’s right! This place here is amazing! Perfect for my experiments."_

_“Nobody cares about your experiments, you idiot!” An elder says, kicking him in the gut. “It’s the health that’s important! I haven’t felt this healthy since we passed through that little strip in the Land of Earth.” She stretches, popping her back, her previously bright blonde hair changing with old age, now a shimmery dark gold._

_‘Kura’ sits down on the top of the mountain. It’s been so long since they’ve actually stayed at a village. She wonders whether they’ll even accept them, considering they’ve just been formed and that the Haruno clan is not shinobi by nature. She’s full of worry, as the heir of their makeshift 'clan', if you can even call it that, but as she watches her sister play with the few other Haruno children, she thinks that everything will work out._

“There were definitely a few chakra users in the clan, like the mother in this story.” Sakura’s father ponders, face scrunched up in visible confusion. “But then why are there-“

“No Haruno shinobi anymore?” Her mom finishes the sentence.

Her father shrugs. “I was going to say no Haruno clan records, but you’re right too. Considering they were quite numerous and had the talent for it, it’s odd why nobody’s ever heard of them, isn’t it?”

The only response he gets is a finger pointing him and then back at her. “We’re the last Haruno 'clan members’ so we would have to be the ones to tell people but nobody would believe civilians talking about being a clan. Besides, chances are that the village has records, it’s just that nobody cared to check until now.”

She stops for a second, blinking, before she continues. “Speaking of not caring to check, why have we never entered the library before? I get why I haven’t because I married into the family, but you? You must have gone into your _own_ family library before, right?”

He shakes his head. “I was told never to touch the library door unless it was already open, no matter what. I guess it just never happened.”

Turning back to the book, her dad tries to flip to the next page, but the book refuses to budge, stuck on the same passage. He tries one more time and the page lights on fire. Dropping the book in panic, he’s about to stamp on it to put the flames out when his wife stops him, grabbing his arm and pointing at the blood aflame. As soon as it hits the floor, the fire extinguishes instantly, the book unharmed, though the burns on his hands are still very much there.

Placing the book back on the table, the two adults, sufficiently freaked out, having been raised as civilians despite their shinobi ancestry, slowly back out of the room, the door slamming shut as soon as they’re completely outside the library.

They resolve to not try doing that for at least a month while the burns in his hands heal. 

They make it three weeks before heading back to the library to try again.

The door is closed. Her father only stares at the door, before turning around to face his wife. "The door's closed. We can't go in." His wife only shrugs, indifferent, before walking away." He turns back to the door, staring for a bit.

Somehow he gets the feeling that the door is looking back at him, metaphorical eyes staring into his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back: hi again
> 
> Next chapter: meeting ino + more context...but mostly meeting INO AHHHHH
> 
> Anyways: writing advice = still appreciated. Save my brain from being turned into mush from blunt trauma via a wall. (Oh not for my sake, just that my writing will get even worse if i'm actually concussed and not just acting like it.)
> 
> So: if you enjoyed, leave a kudos and bookmark it if you like the story and if you don't hate me (but mostly if you like the story: I am irrelevant)


	3. act one, chapter two: meetings and greetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura chuckles nervously. “It’s nothing big. Just my forehead and some revenge.”
> 
> “What did you do to warrant revenge?”
> 
> Sakura coughs into her fist, trying to mask the laugh. “I sort of...punched one of them in the face and beat up the rest of them afterwards.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: welcome back again! this chapter's a little short because I didn't have much time (but I feel irrationally annoyed at myself if I miss a deadline so here we are!) I do hope that meeting Ino will make up for it though: next chapter's going to be the real interesting part!
> 
> Anyways: enjoy!

(☀|☾ )

Sakura is five. Sakura is five and she’s exploring the house, even the places that her parents tell her not to go to. She gets lost a few times, but the house seems to guide her to wherever she wants to go. Their house is so big because they used to have a much bigger family and they all lived together in this borderline mansion. Apparently they were all buried near the house. Sakura thinks about it and wishes that she had a family that big. It’s just her dad, her mom and her in this huge place. 

Oh, and Inner. She’s always with Sakura too, even as the other children bully her because of her forehead and because she talks to Inner in public. They throw stones at her and call her names every time she passes by, and every time, she has to stop Inner for trying to eviscerate someone. It’s not too hard, considering the only way that Inner gains control of her body is when she’s not there to stop it and her mind subconsciously suppresses her most of the time.

The house leads her to a red door, painted with a white circle in the middle. The door is already slightly ajar when she gets there, so she doesn’t have to unlock it, and she pushes it open a smidge to glance inside. It’s a dusty room, unused for many years. She stumbles in, the room dark and her eyes unable to see, so she hugs the wall to navigate. She bumps into and trips on a piece of fabric and it goes down with her, the white curtain wrapping around her. The blinds are pulled back and the now unveiled window shines light into the room and Sakura can see once more. There’s a light carpet on the floor, looking more grey than white and the ceiling and walls are painted a warm cream color. It’s quite spacious. She goes around, moving all the blinds, until all three windows are open, light streaming into the library.

The walls are lined with books, all in their bookshelves, placed neatly, four in a row, two shelves on each side of the windows and the door. Many of the spines link together to paint a picture. There’s a one showing the sun rising from the East and setting from the West. Another is a picture of rays of sunlight shining through the clouds. One thing that all the books have in common is the fact that they are all completely one color apart from the spines, whether it’s a ruby red or a muted beige. Each of the sets is a different color. The bookshelves are simple, a few boards nailed together, all sixteen of them, all painted the same white as the curtains and the carpet, matching as a set.

In the center of the room, there’s a huge wooden table with six wooden chairs tucked in, right on the middle of the carpet. There’s a book on it, red and orange, bound with leather, though the pages are faded and torn. It’s the first two color book she sees and it’s closed shut and when she tries to open it, it doesn’t give, so she puts it back in its place on the table.

Running her hand across the spines of the books, dusting off all she can, she tries to take the nearest one close to her, but it does not budge from its place on the shelf. She tries this with every book in the library, and none of them move. She’s about to give up when she feels the book she’s trying to pull out slip out incredibly easily, almost like butter. It’s a beautiful and rich mahogany, decently sized, the words on the cover written in gold.

 _Basics of Solar Cycles_ , it reads out, and Sakura smiles. Energy renewed by the book, she tries the rest of the books again, but still, none of them budge. Shrugging, she just resolves to come back later. As long as she can find the room again. (She does have to come back to dust the place anyways, it's disgusting here.)

With a book in hand, she turns towards the door with a smile on her face. She’ll be back. Later.

Maybe when she’s a ninja! Her mom’s always been talking about the academy these days.

(☀|❋)

The bullies come back with a vengeance after Sakura kicks their asses, a product of their training over the years. She doesn’t even mean to do it, Inner relaxed and unworried, tired from a night’s hard work. All it takes is one punch and the girl collapses, the weights only adding to the force behind her punch.

“Get her!” One of the other girls says, brown hair typed up in a bob.

Despite their numbers, Sakura wipes the floor with them, though it’s mostly because of their civilian nature; none of the clan kids care enough about her or have enough time to spend pointlessly taunting her. It’s comforting and slightly insulting at the same time in a weird way.

They bring a clan kid with them, a minor one that Sakura doesn’t recognize in either name or ability. Though when her hands start to morph, fingernails sharpening and hands developing a silvery sheen, she has some idea of her kekkei genkai. Knife hands. Not fun.

The clan girl, older than Sakura by a few years, looks down at Sakura, green eyes unwavering even as her brown hair waves in the wind. And for the first time, Sakura meets a clan kid and finally gets to see the real disparity between her and them. “I heard you were the one that spoke ill of my clan?”

Sakura is justifiably confused by now, face blank. “I did what now?”

“Yes.” The other girl nods slowly, her eyes never leaving Sakura’s face. “These girls told me you spread false rumours of my clan’s legitimacy and as an esteemed member and the sister to the heir, I am honorbound to defend it to the death.”

The newly dubbed ‘knife hands’ vaults towards her, not giving her any time to explain, hands angled downward as she jumps. Sakura only barely manages to roll away, knives only grazing her arm instead of piercing them straight through. From there, it’s all instinct and Inner yelling in her ear, telling her where to dodge and when to hit and when to retreat. Dodge left, punch to the solar plexus, kick to the wrist, duck, roll out of the way, on and on it goes. She’s a bit too focused on not dying to try and talk.

It all works out fine until either Inner slips up or Sakura doesn’t react fast enough; it’s hard to say, it happening too quickly. The only thing that matters is the result, which is a deep cut into her left arm, from her wrist all the way to her inner elbow, and a knife pointed at her neck, a few centimetres away.

The clan girl’s apathetic face changes for the first time in the battle, going from uncaring to full of rage and bloodlust. “You fought well, for a civilian. A shame you didn’t think before speaking.” She taps her hand on Sakura’s throat, drawing beads of blood as she taps a little too hard. “Any last words, civilian?”

Inner screeches in her spot in Sakura’s head. _“What the hell are you talking about? We didn’t do anything! We don’t even know what clan you’re from!”_

Outer Sakura only glares at the girl. “If you won’t listen to reason, then I have nothing to say.” She scoffs, sounding much more confident than she actually feels. The knife cuts into her throat a bit more, going from a few beads to a thin line of blood. The clan girl looks like she’s about to dig it into her throat completely. Inner screams.

“Maybe don’t do that?” An unfamiliar voice drawls out, obviously unamused. “And yes, I’m talking to you, Surukin.”

The clan girl turns around, directing her almost feral look at the stranger. “You dare disrespect the mighty Surukin clan, civilian? I could ruin your life with one look-“ She stops talking and abruptly pales when she catches a glance of the person she’s talking at. “Oh, most esteemed heir, forgive me, I did not recognize you-“

“No, no. Continue. I believe you were telling me about how you would ruin my life.” The stranger pauses, carefully inspecting her nails. She turns to the clan girl, blond hair blowing in the wind. “The positions are reversed, dear. Your clan is indebted to mine. What would happen if I told my father about this. Wouldn’t that just devastate your clan if they were to stop getting food and money from ours? We’ve only been helping you because my dad saw potential in your brother.”

The stranger pokes the clan member in the middle of her forehead. “You would do well to understand where you stand, lest you find your clan out of house and home.” She flips her hair, smiling sinisterly. “The Surukin clan might cease to exist if that happens, and you know who they’ll all blame?”

“You.” She finishes, drawing out the word as she says it. “But I am merciful and will overlook this transgression if only you stop now and return to your clan. So leave. Before I change my mind.”

The girl, having gone from a fierce tiger to a scared house cat in front of Sakura’s very eyes, bows, before slinking away in defeat, aware of her place in the social structure. “Yes, Yamanaka-sama.” 

When she disappears from view, the blonde girl turns to Sakura with a huge smile on her face, who’s still in shock, both from the injuries and from the display she just witnessed. “Hi, my name’s Ino!”

“Hello.” Sakura says, still a little bit woozy from the blood loss. “I’m Sakura.”

Ino smiles once more, brushing her new bangs aside. “Could you tell me why those girls were bullying you?” Holding one of Sakura’s hands in her own, she tilts her head, waiting for an answer. 

Sakura chuckles nervously. “It’s nothing big. Just my forehead and some revenge.”

“What did you do to warrant revenge?”

Sakura coughs into her fist, trying to mask the laugh. “I sort of...punched one of them in the face and beat up the rest of them afterwards.”

Ino giggles at that. “That just means you’re strong, strong enough to protect yourself. I like that.” She doesn’t get much farther than that because when Sakura tries to stand up, she staggers from the dizziness. Ino catches her and drags her to the hospital, where a barely conscious Sakura is given the best treatment a decently sized clan like the Yamanakas can provide.

(☀|❋)

“Are you awake?” A voice exclaims, breaking through the foggy silence in Sakura’s brain. She blinks her eyes open, groggily rubbing her eyes as she tries to sit up. A hand slowly pushes her back down. “Don’t exert yourself! You lost a lot of blood.”

“Ino?” Sakura mumbles out, her mouth feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. “Ist thast you?”

“Yup.” Ino says, waiting for Sakura to wake up a little more. After a minute of comfortable silence, she looks into Sakura’s eyes, checking for lucidity. When she sees that Sakura is aware of her surroundings, she sighs in relief. “You had me worried there!”

“Sorry. I guess you don’t want to be my friend anymore. It’s okay. Most people don’t.” Sakura rambles on. “It wouldn’t be any different. The other kids, the civilian ones, say that I’m weird and so they don’t hang out with me and it’s fine, I get it, my forehead is big and all-“

Ino puts a finger on Sakura’s lips, shushing her. She pats Sakura’s head, ruffling her hair a bit in the process. “Of course I still want to be friends with you, why would you think otherwise?” When Sakura is about to respond with “It wouldn’t surprise me if you did.”, Ino continues. “You’re super cool. You stood up to a clan child even though you are a civilian and had no formal training and you’re very pretty.”

Sakura gasps, still in awe. "Really?"

The blonde smiles at her. "Of course! I'd love to have you in my class when I head to the Academy!" She taps a finger on her chin, giving Sakura a once-over and a contemplative look. "But since you're a civilian, you'll have to work that much harder to make it in the Academy. So you better try your best!"

Pulling out a red ribbon, she guides Sakura’s hair, tying it back. “And for the record, I think your forehead looks great, just the way it is.” Ino pats Sakura on the head once more, before turning and leaving the hospital room.

 _“Holy shit.”_ Inner mumbles in Sakura’s head, spellbound. “ _Marry her_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back: you may not have wanted me here, but I'm here anyways!
> 
> Also: I wanted a threat for Sakura but didn't want to character bash (my thoughts on characters are my own and really should not cause me to twist actual characters in the series and not random people I made in under two minutes) so we have *insert original character name here*. I don't really know, I didn't give her a name; she has her clan name and nothing more, which I took from translating and mashing words related to metal/sharp things together so there.
> 
> Anyways: next chapter is either the start of the Academy OR some training and more character development for Sakura/introductions for a few other characters (read: absolute idiots). See you next week (unless I fall down the stairs I guess?)
> 
> Leave a kudos or bookmark if you enjoyed! (*coughs aggressively* not an attention seeker...probably? *cough cough*)


	4. act one, chapter three: lost and found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy groans, rolling his eyes. 
> 
> Troublesome. This entire situation is troublesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: I’m back! Not much to say this time, just some extra plot building and a new character being introduced! I won’t say who because you’re about to read it, but from the summary, you probably have a good idea of it.
> 
> Anyways: enjoy!

(☀| ☾)

“And that’s the last one!” Sakura says, gently putting the thick burgundy book down on her bedside table. It’s still a bit dusty, even after flipping through all those pages multiple times, but Sakura will admit, it’s a much better improvement compared to the mess it was two weeks ago when she first got the book. 

She really enjoyed each page, having reread many chapters a few times, thus the two weeks instead of the five days or so that it might have actually taken if she had merely read each page once. The weird thing is that not once was an author mentioned in the book, but Sakura dismisses it as merely being a quirk of the book. Maybe it was a bigger group that wrote it and none of them wanted to take credit? Whatever.

Looking outside, she sees the sun high in the sky, noon having just passed. It’s a free day for her and she’s got nothing to do, so naturally, she spends the time reading.

Inner cheers in her head. _“Are we going back to the library then? Seeing if there will be any other books that the place will let you take?”_

Sakura nods - and it probably looks strange to anybody looking in on her, a young girl nodding to nobody, at least she’s figured out how to talk with Inner without speaking out loud, though she’s not great at it. “We have to return the book - libraries don’t let you take books unless you return the ones you already have out.” She nods again, silent until she bursts into giggles after Inner just sends feelings of confusion and disbelief over their mental link.

 _“Alright then, I don’t get it, but sure?”_ Inner sighs, mentally rolling her eyes. _“Sakura logic?”_

The pink haired girl only smiles and says, “Sakura logic.”

And with that, they head to the library. They still haven’t figured out where the library _actually_ is, so they still need a few nudges and guiding clues from the house itself, like the right hallway being lit up when Sakura and Inner have done no such thing, or the wrong way being blocked off by random objects, like some chairs or a table. Following the clues, they arrive at the red-stained door, white circle still pristine in the center of the wood. It’s lit like the last time they came, with the windows still open and the sunlight still pouring in from all sides. The skylight illuminates the center of the room, where the light from the four walls does not reach, bathing the entire library in a bright warm glow.

They stand there in silence for who knows how long before Inner speaks up. _“So...now what?”_ She says, shrugging through their link. _“You just going to do the same thing as last time?”_

Sakura’s only response is a sheepish nod. “I don’t see what else we could do. The book on the table is still there from where it was last time, and if it doesn’t open like last time, then I don’t really have a plan.”

Inner sighs, mentally rolling her eyes. _“Let’s call ‘pulling out all the books in order in each bookshelf from left to right, top shelf to bottom shelf like last time’ plan B. Any other ideas that don’t involve wasting a good portion of our day?”_ She sounds too cheerful for it to be sincere and Sakura can only snort in exasperation. _“I’m taking suggestions!”_

Sakura holds up a hand to shush Inner in real life, before realizing that Inner can’t see it, so puts it down and sends the mental image of it to her other half. “Shush, I’m thinking.” She pauses, the silence stretching on for a few seconds, before she continues talking. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

 _“Fantastic! Plan B it is!”_ Sakura nods and starts with the bookshelf nearest to her, the one right to her left. She’s about to start - the books aren’t going to pull themselves out of the wall, after all - when Inner, all of a sudden, freaks out. Well, it’s not so much ‘freaks out’ as it is Inner sending feelings of panic over their bond before Sakura is as on edge as she is.

“What, what is it?” The pinkette whispers, quickly turning to face the room, back against the aforementioned bookshelf.

 _“I sensed someone, I could have sworn I sensed someone.”_ At Sakura’s gasp, Inner shakes her head, trying to find a better way to word it. _“They were only there for a second, and I couldn’t sense any ill-intent from them, only mild exasperation, which is why their presence was so weak. They sensed a bit different though.”_

“What?” Sakura asks, confused. “Different how?”

 _“It was like they weren’t completely there, know what I mean? It was like they were half the person they should have been, so their signature was have as strong as it would have been. It was...kinda disconcerting, to be honest with you.”_ Inner extends her bubble again, now half the size of the decently sized room after lots of practice. _“They’re gone now, though.”_

 _“Okay, then. I’ll take your word for it.”_ Sakura glances around the room, as if looking for this strange presence. _“So, back to book searching then?”_

Inner nods. _“Back to book searching.”_

It takes them an hour to find the one book that will move when pulled this time. It’s on the seventh bookshelf starting from the shelf to the left of the door and counting clockwise, on the second highest ledge in the shelf. It’s bound in leather stained a brilliant blue, with golden stars and lines twinkling on the ornate cover. _Beginners Constellations_ , the book cover reads, dusty as a book left for so long would be. 

It’s thick, almost as thick as the first book, though it seems to be mostly pictures and drawings of the constellations themselves, along with little blurbs written in a messy scrawl. Just like the other book Sakura took out, there’s no author written on the cover or anywhere in the book.

Sakura finishes it in two days.

Inner can only sigh and roll her eyes when Sakura asks if they can go back to the library. _It’s been two days_ , she thinks, but doesn’t say.

(☀| ☾)

Inner’s found a way to make sure that Sakura can keep up with the clan kids now, at least in one way. She knows that they’ll never be able to be as athletic and as quick as some of the others, considering it’s in their genetics and when compared to a clan kid, her and Sakura about as fit as a squash, but she does have one thing she can keep up in.

Knowledge.

In fact, she could argue that she’s better at retaining knowledge than most of the clan kids - except maybe the Nara, but again _genetics_. (...Not to brag or anything.)

Anyways, back to the technique. While Inner can’t see by herself, she can still use Sakura’s sight to her advantage even as she doesn’t actually _use_ Sakura’s sight. Creative problems require creative solutions, right?

So long as a book is in Sakura’s sights, Inner can process it, even if Sakura isn’t actually reading it. As long as Sakura registers the information, even for a second, even if she doesn’t actually get any of it, Inner can remember it and can think about it and build upon it by herself. It means that Sakura could be reading her newest book on astronomy from the library, one that has nothing to do with being a shinobi - it’s _Navigating Utilizing Star Positions_ this time - still useful, and Inner could be thinking about a book Sakura skimmed through a week ago in a few minutes and know the text word for word. As long as it enters Sakura’s sight, even for the smallest fraction of a second? Inner knows it.

The technique doesn’t have a lot of use at the moment, considering even basic shinobi books are banned from civilians, but let’s just say that Inner’s really looking forward to heading to the Academy. (She’s going to memorize the _entire_ library - not that hard, considering it’s the Academy library, there are like _seven_ books in there - but just _wait_ until she’s a Genin!)

Someone might say that it’s not possible for a human to do such a thing.

Well, Inner’s not _technically_ human, is she? So it’s fair game.

Of course, she could also study on her ‘own’ time, but she’s learned the hard way that staying up for too long not only makes her sluggish in the day, but that it starts to carry over to Sakura as well after a while, making the pinkette irritable and prone to falling asleep on a dime. So she doesn’t do that anymore, not after Sakura decided to kick a tree as hard as she could _just_ to make Inner feel the pain and stop.

( _Ow_. But like, cool.)

But regardless of what method she uses, since Sakura and Inner are constantly linked, any information that Inner has, Sakura gets, and vice versa as well. When Inner mentions this to Sakura, the pink haired girl only shrugs and picks up one of the books she grabbed from the library.

“Sure, why not?”

Inner smiles. _Time for these clan kids to get a taste of their own medicine!_

(Well, not really. A pissed off clan kid could still one hundred percent beat up Sakura if they chose to. More like _let’s show these civilians what we’re made of!_ That’s safer.)

[☀]

The day just before she turns six is a day she will never forget, and for good reason. It is what seems like a normal day, just another sunrise and sunset on the Hidden Village. And yet, something strange happens as the clock strikes midnight and the day has passed. It’s something that at the time, she did not know how to explain, and even after a decade, she finds it still difficult to articulate to others - and by others, she means those not well versed in her clan’s culture.

So everybody except herself and Inner.

Anyways, it’s a peculiar thing. Waking up in the middle of the forest, that is. And it’s not even the forest part that’s the weirdest to her (though it is plenty weird), but rather the waking up at midnight part. Sakura stumbles awake, blinking her eyes blearily, confused at why her legs hurt and why it’s dark outside. She rubs her eyes to try and wake up a bit more, then she rubs them again, just to make sure she isn’t hallucinating the bright full moon in the sky, moonlight shining through the thick canopy in thin concentrated beams.

She has no clue where she is, or why she’s awake at night, during Inner’s time. Speaking of whom, when Sakura checks on her, she finds that her presence is dimmed, dull to the point that Sakura can barely sense her. Understandably, she panics a bit, her one lifelong friend having suddenly disappeared off the face of the planet - or well, her mind. She makes a bit of a ruckus, stomping around, kicking trees and snapping branches under her feet, before calming down a bit.

Sakura scans the trees around her, finding that her eyesight is better than usual, comparable to her eyesight in the daytime and she makes a mental note to ask Inner about it later. She’s much more quiet when she walks around now, no longer intent on throwing a tantrum and much more careful about what she does and where she steps. 

There’s a lake she can see in the distance, the light glinting off the water like a beacon calling for her to come. Heading towards it as stealthily as possible, she reaches the shore, the small waves rippling onto the dirt. It’s less of a lake than it is a big pond, with a small pagoda in the middle, joined to the land by two bridges, each on opposite sides. She’s still not sure where she is so she doesn’t head towards the pagoda, seeing as it’s out in the open and exposed if she would need to run. Instead, she heads towards the side of the lake, far enough to ensure she can run into the trees if need be, yet close enough to see the reflection of her head.

And what a reflection it is! She only knows what Inner’s ‘real’ body looks like from second-hand accounts from her parents and Inner herself. It’s odd, seeing her face virtually unchanged, but with sleek black locks in place of her pink hair and yellow piercing eyes where light green ones once sat. There are subtle differences other than the colouring, such as how these fingers are calloused where hers are smooth, still unblemished by training and injury, or two small thin scars near her palms that seem from weapons used incorrectly.

Scanning the perimeter of the lake, Sakura sees no people nearby, only a deer on the other side of the shore taking a drink, and so she moves closer to the water, wanting to see her reflection in more detail. Her eyes, upon closer inspection, have a thin ring surrounding her pupil, the slightly darker color unnoticeable if someone isn’t looking for it. Her hair occasionally shimmers as it flows calmly in the wind, glints of silver disappearing as soon as they appear. Her hands seem so much stronger than her ‘normal’ ones, even though she knows that nothing has changed biologically, apart from the small scars that mark her palms.

After however much time passes - she doesn’t know - Sakura’s satisfied at the amount of time she’s spent, reasonably confident that she’s memorized her appearance to the best of her ability. After all, she’s not sure that she’ll ever get the chance to see herself like this first hand ever again. Who’s to say that tonight isn’t a fluke, as opposed to a pattern? It’s never happened before, and for all she knows, it may never happen again. Walking away from the pond, she heads for the trees behind her, the ones she came out of when she had crept towards the shore.

It only takes her about a minute from the lake for her to be confronted with a large wooden fence, much taller than she is. It extends beyond her sight, and she has to squint to see farther, where the fence turns inwards on both sides, forming three sides of a box. There are small indents in the wood, perfect for her to use as grips and footrests when climbing. They exist in a criss-cross pattern, oddly neat in position, almost as if methodically made. They’re bigger than her hands by quite a bit, but it doesn’t seem like the type of big that one might make in order to have more room. No, these were made specifically for someone else’s hands and feet to use.

She shrugs the thought off, not caring about who made them at the moment, just that they exist at all. She puts one foot in the first hole and grabs onto one above. One step after another, and she’s at the top of the fence. At a higher vantage point, she can see farther and while she can’t see her house or her neighbourhood, she can see the marketplace, from where she’ll be able to head home. She sighs in relief, knowing that she isn’t that far from her house.

(She wasn’t a hundred percent sure if she was even still in Konoha.)

Swinging her legs onto the other side of the fence, she looks down at the ground far below her. It’s close enough that she’d be able to drop without dying, but not without breaking a leg or spraining an ankle. She kicks the fence behind her with her heel, swinging her legs as she tries to find a way down. There are no trees nearby for her to climb onto and then just slide down, and she’s momentarily scared, worried if she’ll ever be able to get down. On the next swing, her foot catches for a minute on the fence and looking down, she almost collapses in relief. There are another set of ledges on this side of the fence as well, so she turns, back facing the marketplace and proceeds to climb down. 

Finally! She’ll be able to head home!

(✩)

A few trees away, a boy sits on one of the thicker branches. He’s the same age as Sakura is, though he doesn’t know it, considering he doesn’t know her. As the girl begins her descent down _his_ ledges, he sighs. He didn’t see who was trespassing on his family’s property and he didn’t confront her because he wasn’t sure if she was a threat or even an extremely young shinobi. 

He doesn’t know anything about her, only that he’d been relaxing in the pagoda before he’d heard footsteps and, knowing that nobody else in his family would be awake this late outside, let alone would head to the lake of all places, had hid until she’d lost concentration and was no longer paying attention to the surroundings or him. He’d dashed as quietly as he could down the bridge - thank clans training their children in basic shinobi skills way too early - and climbed one of the nearby trees before swinging to another, hopping closer to her with each tree but still keeping a safe distance.

The only reason he knows that it was even a kid as opposed to an adult is her height, along with the fact that her hands were shaking in a way that no adult’s would. Though, she could just be a very short adult and her hands could be faked, considering that if she was a shinobi, she would have been able to sense him nearby and could have imitated a small child to trick him. Thinking back, he could have been being played the entire time and wouldn’t have been any wiser. 

Ugh, he could slap himself in stupidity. Never underestimate the opponent.

He hears a thud from the other side of the fence and a small cheer, only audible to him due to proximity, signalling to him that the girl must have landed. Footsteps echo in the silence, slowly fading away as the girl dashes away. The boy sighs to himself, conflicted. 

On one hand, he should tell his dad about a potential intruder and a potential security breach, considering the only reason why the fence isn’t warded is because of the many defences preventing any hostiles from entering the village itself. 

But on the other hand, telling his dad would invite suspicion onto himself, considering he was supposed to be sleeping at the time, and would raise questions as to why he was at the lake to begin with. They might even ward the fence and then he wouldn’t be able to leave undetected - not that he needs to, but still - and it would be a major inconvenience.

The boy groans, rolling his eyes. 

Troublesome. This entire situation is troublesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: back again from the dead! Hope you enjoyed! And be on the lookout for more Shikamaru, he’s not one of my favorite characters for nothing, y’know? But seriously, he’s like in my top 5. More Shikamaru? A reason to bookmark if I’ve ever heard one! 
> 
> (My brain: “You are not smooth, no matter what you try to convince yourself.”)
> 
> Anyways: leave a kudos and bookmark if you enjoyed! Comments are the bread and butter of my day - literally, because I don’t eat breakfast, I eat brunch - so talk to me in the comments! I’ll see you all next week unless I get crushed by a grand piano - toodles!


	5. act one, chapter four: revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So she does, and she reads. And what she learns changes her world view entirely. Only two pages are open to her, a voice telling her that this is all she needs for the moment, so she does not flip the page and reads over a brief summary of the Haruno family, forgotten history and all.
> 
> (But is it forgotten if it still lives on, waiting for an heir of its knowledge? Is it history at all if one had experienced the event in its midst? Is it brief if it is someone’s life and soul, all their experiences, someone’s heart poured onto paper?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: I’m back! Super sorry for not updating last week but I went (read: was dragged) up north and got to experience the magic of no wifi in a cottage and mosquito bites. Lovely. Anyways, I’m back with a pretty packed chapter - mostly to apologize for not updating last week and because even I’m getting a bit bored of tiny Sakura doing tiny things - so enjoy it! There are plenty of revelations in the chapter, hence the title. See if you can find them all! 
> 
> (Act one ends next chapter or the chapter after that one, I haven’t decided yet.)
> 
> Enjoy!

(☀|✩)

This is easily the oddest conversation Sakura’s been a part of in a while - apart from her internal banter with Inner, of course. (Nothing could top midnight conversations by an exhausted Inner about the origins of brunch, _of course_.)

“Who’s this girl, Ino? Civilian? Really?” The boy says, hair tied up in a bun, the ends splitting apart like a black pineapple. “Since when did you talk to the ‘commoners?’” When Ino levels a murderous glare at him, he only shrugs. “Your words, not mine.”

“Don’t listen to him, Sakura. He’s an idiot.” Ino punctuates, sending another glare at the relaxed boy, who merely rolls his eyes and lies down by a nearby tree.

Sakura just stands there, glancing between the stranger and Ino, who sighs and kicks the other boy in the side. The boy sits up, narrowing his eyes at the blonde girl, before glancing at Sakura with an eerily observant and piercing look. An awkward silence hangs in the air as neither Sakura nor the boy looks away, before he blinks, face reverting back to an apathetic expression. “Shikamaru Nara. Nice to meet you, I guess.”

Sakura blinks, momentarily stunned by the abrupt change in personality and tone. “Haruno Sakura. Nice to meet you too.”

“ _He’s weird.”_ Says Inner, sending suspicion and even the slightest feelings of paranoia over their link. When Sakura mentally rolls her eyes at Inner, the voice huffs, affronted. _“What? It’s true. You feel it too, don’t you?”_

The pinkette internally sighs. _“Shut up. He’s Ino’s friend and you like her.”_

Inner pouts, crossing her arms. “ _It’s not simple._ **_She_ ** _called you pretty. This...Shikamaru has moved four times in the past ten minutes.”_

Sakura shrugs Inner off, paying attention to Ino, who’s telling Shikamaru about how she met Sakura for the first time. She turns to face Ino and inadvertently makes eye contact with Shikamaru once more, his eyes narrowed in wariness for only a second before switching back to his default indifference so quickly that Sakura almost does a double-take just to make sure that she didn’t imagine the look that he gave her.

(Unbeknownst to both Sakura and Inner, even though their conservations in Sakura’s head only last a few milliseconds, Sakura’s eyes glaze over slightly, a subtle tell that she’s not completely there, what with having to put some of her attention and energy into talking to Inner and not paying attention to the outside world. Ino, her only friend has never noticed, considering she never pays the amount of attention needed to actually see it.

Shikamaru does.)

(☀|✫)

Her meetings with ANBU-san continue for quite some time, with the shinobi even teaching her how to throw shuriken and kunai after she asks for help. One session every week with a little bit of homework for her to do when he’s not there. He’s become less of a stranger and more of a mentor of sorts, a teacher to her, helping her learn all the things that clan kids learn before the Academy to ensure she doesn’t fall behind. She’s never seen under the mask, for obvious reasons, but she’s found that she doesn’t really mind.

(She hasn’t told him about Inner either. He has his secrets, she has hers. Though, he’s not allowed to take his mask off; she just doesn’t want to.)

She throws the last shuriken at the tree, the weapon not hitting bullseye but digging into the tree with enough force that it stays in the wood. Regardless, she’s satisfied with her progress, no longer cutting herself on the weapons by accident and hitting four or five bullseyes out of ten tries. Not bad.

Turning around to face the emotionless animal mask, she asks why he would spend his time teaching a civilian child when he obviously has more important and pressing things to take care of, being in ANBU and all.

His only non-verbal response is a tilt of his head due to the mask covering his facial expressions, but Sakura has a feeling that he’s smiling underneath the porcelain. “Why, it’s because I think you have the potential to be one of the best in your generation. You progress startlingly quickly for a civilian with no training, you sure you aren’t from a clan?” Sakura levels him with a glare and he backs off, a bit sheepish. “Anyways, besides, the other candidates for that title get help from their clans, so why shouldn’t you?”

“You’re not part of my family. It’s different.” Sakura argues, ignoring Inner’s hiss to just let it go and accept the help for what it is. It’s even more complicated than just not being family. She doesn’t even know his name, what clan he’s from, if any, and she _still_ can’t tell what type of animal his mask is supposed to be. It’s just a white mask with a bunch of red marks on it. The only defining characteristic of the pattern is a big red triangle at the top, dead center with two lines like whiskers of sorts on each side.

“Well, there is the whole ‘ _not wanting a child to die because she’s unprepared’_ thing, but I suppose that’s not really the most important thing, is it?” He sounds so smug to Sakura.

“...Touché.” Says Sakura, turning to pick up the shurikens to try again. “Why so serious?”

He shakes his head, chuckling all the while. “No, my best friend is the serious one. I’m the comedic relief for him.” He takes a moment to reposition his ANBU mask, before continuing. “He’s a real genius, you know?” He sounds slightly self-deprecating, before his tone picks up once more. “You’re really improving with your aim, both with shuriken and kunai.”

“Well, do you think I’m prepared for the Academy then? Could I match up with some of the clan kids?” Asks Sakura, choosing to ignore the ANBU’s blatant attempt to change the conversation. (She’s a kid, not _stupid_.)

ANBU-san clasps his hands together and rests his chin on top of them, like he’s deep in thought. “Well, you probably could outside of the Academy, but not when you’re in class.” When Sakura turns to him with a confused look, he shrugs. “You certainly can’t use this amount of skill in class, you’re a civilian. It’ll seem real suspicious, a random civilian kid outperforming even one or two of the clan kids? They’ll think you’re an enemy spy or something, trained by an unknown person to sabotage Konoha. And I’m sure it’s obvious that you can’t go around saying that an ANBU trained you.” He makes ‘jazz-hands’ at her and Inner cackles.

Rolling her eyes, Sakura turns to throw another shuriken. “Well, if they’re so observant, then wouldn’t they notice me sabotaging my results? They’re not stupid.”

“True, true. But, then again. They don’t think that a civilian could be skilled enough to have the ability to hide their true intentions from _‘great and mighty shinobi’,_ do they? Any mistakes you make will probably be attributed to just _‘civilians being civilians_.’”

“...Fair enough.” Sakura admits, throwing her last shuriken and internally cheering when the bladed edge imbeds itself in a wooden bullseye.

The ANBU laughs, not for the first time in her training. “ANBU: three hundred and one, Sakura: zero.”

“Sakura: one.” Sakura corrects him. The ANBU looks at her and Inner feeds feelings of confusion into their link from him, you know, being able to _sense_ strong emotions and all. “I punched you in the throat a week ago when you left me to do laps until I collapsed.”

“That’s not fair. I was _asleep_.”

[☀]

On nights with no moon at all, Inner is quiet, almost like she has never existed and Sakura’s head feels strangely empty. As odd as it might sound, she’s so used to having another person in her head that when Inner quiets down, it’s like a part of her is missing, like she’s incomplete. As the sun sets for the day, she knows from her (frankly obsessive) reading and memorization of the lunar cycle that tonight is another one of those nights.

Inner knows too. Of course she does. She was the one that actually read the book the first time before Sakura wanted to memorize it by herself, even though she already knew the chapters by heart. She says good night to Sakura at dusk, even though that is the time that she starts to become more alert, already superhuman senses stretching even farther. When Sakura asks what it’s like for Inner on new moon nights, Inner mentions the feeling of having all her senses muffled to the point of not being able to sense anything or communicate with Sakura. 

“It’s not as bad as I’m making it out to be. It’s like everything is covered in cotton, all fuzzy and warm, sharp edges going soft and hazy.” She says, yawning. “It’s probably the closest thing to real sleep that I can experience, considering I’m normally always awake and alert.”

The sky above her grows dark, the stars shining above her. Sakura tends to spend these sort of nights reading in the library, unused to actually being able to control her body after dusk. But today, she’s sitting next to her window, staring up into the vast emptiness, stars winking at her from their perches in the darkness, their light like miniature suns twinkling bright in the night sky. She’s seen the stars before, but only on days like this one, where Inner goes to sleep and she gets to see the night sky. 

(Well, and the weird thing that happened just before her sixth birthday, but from what she has seen, that was an anomaly and not something that was about to become the norm. After all, she’s still _her_ today, isn’t she? The wind blows through her open window and pink locks disrupt her vision, smooth and uncalloused hands sweeping her hair out of her eyes, her green emerald eyes as she stares upwards into the void above.)

It’s quiet. It’s nice.

After a while, she yawns, getting into bed. As she’s about to fall asleep, a small sound pitters through the hall outside her door, like a child’s bare footsteps on worn creaking wood. At first, she dismisses it as perhaps one of her parents checking up on her or maybe grabbing a midnight snack, but the steps continue near her door, like someone is pacing outside her room. Sufficiently wary, she opens the door, holding her handheld mirror in one hand as a makeshift weapon while her other hand reaches for the handle. She creaks open the door and-

Nobody’s there. She’s met with eerie silence and bloody footprints leading down the hall to her right. Outlined in bright crimson, the exact red of the library door, of their family crest, of her heritage, the imprints look both freshly made and ancient at the same time, as vibrant as fresh blood but not smearing when Sakura touches one, already seemingly staining the floor. The sound of footsteps stops abruptly ahead of her and instead of continuing on, they vanish, a small draft of wind guiding her instead, even though there are no windows nearby, almost as if the house itself is urging her to follow the trail of red.

And so she does. The house has never led her astray yet, and she has no reason to believe it ever will. One right turn, then a left, another right and then another. Straight ahead to the library door. The lights flicker on and off, lighting the way ahead of her, like little beacons guiding her to her destination.

( _To your destiny_ , a small voice whispers near her ear, faint enough that for a moment, Sakura thinks she’s imagined it.)

The door appears in front of her, red and white, ring as perfect as ever. It seems to glow faintly, but simmers down after a while. The door creaks open in front of her, like a wind draft blowing through, even though and even as she knows that the windows in the library don’t open, glass as firm and steady as it always has been. 

The inside of the room is equally strange, with the table being illuminated by a faint glow, as bright as moonlight, even as the absence of the moon makes itself profoundly clear, the skylight showing nothing but winking stars in the darkness. The bookshelves are still there, but they are shrouded in black, the light from the table, not stretching any farther, almost like telling Sakura to ignore the other books and to pay attention to the one on the wooden desk. 

And yes, the desk. The book is still there, closed as always, neither Inner nor Sakura having moved it in the year and a half that she’s had access to her library. (She pays no mind to the mention of it being her library, for that is what it is. Her parents mention not being allowed in, the door burning them as it shuts them out. But it has always been open for her, inviting her into its sanctuary.) It sits pristine in all its glory, not dusty even after a year unopened and possibly decades of being undiscovered, worn leather soft on her fingertips, orange to red, reminiscent of dawn and dusk, as free as the sun herself. A small ribbon, torn yellow silk floating and flickering in the non-existent wind, calls to her, marking a page that she’s meant to open, that just feels _right_.

So she does, and she reads. And what she learns changes her world view entirely. Only two pages are open to her, a voice telling her that this is all she needs for the moment, so she does not flip the page and reads over a brief summary of the Haruno family, forgotten history and all.

(But is it forgotten if it still lives on, waiting for an heir of its knowledge? Is it history at all if one had experienced the event in its midst? Is it brief if it is someone’s life and soul, all their experiences, someone’s heart poured onto paper?)

A family tree, with all recorded descendants sits at the bottom of the first page open to her. She traces her hand over the faces and names, stopping at one portrait. _Haruno_ _Hina_ , daughter of the last clan head, the last recorded member, with no other relatives under. But it’s odd. The page is smeared, like someone took an eraser and tried to erase the names underneath. Like someone did not want anybody to know of any other Harunos. Or perhaps it’s just outdated, no new names being added. (She doesn’t think that’s the case.)

She reads about her family - no, her _clan_ . She reads of how they settled in Konoha, of their sun kissed hair and their glimmering eyes and how they wielded the sun, no, how they were the sunlight itself. Before she can really register it, she’s done the first page, done reading the (extremely) summarized history. She takes a glance at the second page to the right of the first, no page flip needed. And she reads, and reads _more_.

_”Haruno Neoma, did I raise you to be a feral animal, or are you the next clan heir?” The redhead says, exasperated at the mess her seven year old has somehow gotten herself into. Shattered plates lie on the floor, sun still streaming and cascading around the room. To any other shinobi, this would be a minefield to walk though, the sun able to cleave through anything that the user wishes it to, shown by the scorching streaks that line the walls of the training room. But Haruno Kura is no mere shinobi, and as she walks in, the light merely streams around her, unwilling to harm one of their wielders._

_“Sorry, but to be fair, it was like all Kiran’s fault! He threw the plates at me when I was just trying to focus my inner light! Said something about not wanting to be left behind.”_

_Kura gives her daughter an incredulous look and curses her son’s logic. “So he threw plates at you?”_

_“So he threw plates at me. And then this happened! I was so shocked that I lost control of the light and now I don’t know how to get it back under control.” With a wave of her hand, the light congregates in the palm of her hand as a bright ball of light, buzzing as if happy that it has found a suitable master for the time being before their own can learn to wield it masterfully. Neoma gasps and tries to reach for the light, but Kura pulls her hand away, well aware that such a dense concentration of light would easily send her daughter into a light frenzy, manic and energetic, high on the feeling of the sun. And she does not have the patience or energy to deal with that today._

_“You can come out now, I can sense you with my scout.” As if on command, both her scout, made of pure light but shaped like a salamander and her son, sheepish and ashamed, pop out from behind one of the curtains near the back entrance. The salamander jumps and skitters all the way to Kura, climbing her leg and perching itself onto her shoulder, not burning the floor because she wills it not to. It cannot burn her, nor her kids, nor anyone else in her clan, due to their contract with the sun. They may only use it to exact the sun’s judgement, and any light cannot harm any of those who may wield it as well, nothing more and nothing less._

_Of course, there is one family in their clan who, for some reason, cannot access the light, and so the beams that the others use as protection for their clan, will seem very much like a weapon to them, but Kura ignores it._

_“Now, why did you...throw plates at your twin sister?” Kura asks, half disappointed and half annoyed. The youngest child isn’t this annoying. “And what’s this about not wanting to be left behind?”_

_“I- well- it’s just that...“ Kiran stumbles over his words for a second, before stopping to compose himself. “She’s being trained to be the clan heir and I get that, considering the sun has always given stronger blessings to girls in our clan, but I’m strong too! You’ve all just been training her to ensure she’s the strongest clan leader she can be, but I can fight too! I want to be taught the same things!”_

_When he mentions the blessings, Kura’s heart clenches, as she remembers her father, the strongest male lightbender in the clan in history, and who will probably stay that way for a very long time. But even he was nothing in comparison to his daughter, who surpassed him in ability by the time she had turned twenty. (The elders mention how it could be that their spiritual bond to the sun is weaker, but nobody really knows.)_ _Has she been neglecting her son, and in fact the rest of the young boys in their clan, at least the ones who can bend light? Has she neglected their training, focusing on the girls, who, objectively are stronger in the ways of the sun?_

_(She has. She has. And a part of her, the mother, the caring caretaker, that part of her **weeps**.)_

_“We can’t teach you any of the leader-specific techniques, because they only bind themselves to two people at a time, one leader and one apprentice.” When Kiran sinks in disappointment, she tuts. “But we can get you started on other more advanced techniques. In fact, I’ll be testing all of the children in our clan, male or female, to see if anybody else is ready and has the necessary precision and control to advance. It is a new era, after all, and we should change with the times!” Her voice booms in the training room/theatre as it echoes off the walls._

_A new era, indeed._

Sakura closes the book as she finishes the page, never letting the worn cover out of her grip. A clan. A clan. She was part of a clan - no, she is part of a clan. A clan that had powers, had a kekkei genkai! She wants to try to see if she has any powers, if she inherited their inner light, flickering and repressed until now. But, it is night at the moment, despite the light surrounding the table, there is no light, no sun or moon to spin light from, so she puts it off until the morning.

She rushes back to her room, the tangled mess of hallways and routes suddenly making sense in front of her, the halls no longer twisting and no lights to guide her, but she knows where she is, nonetheless. She gets to her room and tries to fall asleep, aware that she’ll need the energy for tomorrow and that there’s nothing that she can do until the sun rises once more. But her mind is racing, manic at the possibility that she might have a kekkei genkai of her own.

She tries to sleep but she can’t. Does she have that sort of power? Could she one day control such a thing? Is she technically the clan heir then? They are extremely matriarchal, considering their leaders have almost always been females, with only two male leaders in recorded history, both being only children, without female siblings to compete with. Her mother married into the family, so she’s not eligible for clan leadership, and her dad definitely can’t wield the sun, nor is he a woman - obviously - so that leaves Sakura as the best candidate for clan leadership considering they are the last Harunos alive and so-

“Calm down, we will guide you to your destiny.” A female voice whistles, voice sounding like chimes in the wind, light and carefree.

A different voice speaks up, voice tenor and soft. “You have the talent, but do you have the drive?” He sounds slightly envious for a second, before he quiets down.

“Sleep.” Another whispers in her ear, voice not as light as the first, but not as deep as the second, speech like a little flute being played in her ear.

And she does.

(The footprints are gone in the morning.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: Did you enjoy it? I hope you did or I gave myself a hand cramp for no reason :( Next chapter is of Sakura learning more about the Harunos + telling Inner about it, considering she’s basically asleep this time. There’s a reason why Inner’s not here for this scene and why it has to happen on a new moon (read: night with basically no moon), but we’ll get into that...eventually. Eventually.
> 
> Here’s the obligatory “If you liked the story/like it so far, please leave a kudos! Comments make my day, so don’t hesitate to talk to me, even if it’s not about the story!”
> 
> Anyways, I’ll see you next week!


	6. act one, chapter five: hidden goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He runs.
> 
> Sakura is there, and only Sakura. Sakura, who is the girl he’s been teaching how to throw shuriken and kunai since she was four. Sakura, the pinkette who he’s sure will take the world by storm, showing that clans sometimes aren’t worth it, with their politics and deceit and treason and coups.
> 
> Sakura, who is wielding a whip made of pure light.
> 
> “I can explain, I swear!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! Hoooo boy, this chapter is a doozy. I’m covering the entirely of the rest of her childhood in one chapter because I didn’t think anybody would want a training montage and I didn’t want to make it too long so here we are. But there’s a reason for it! (A plot reason, I’m being serious, haha cliffhangers and things that make no sense right now.) By the way, I’m covering the massacre in some part in this chapter, right at the end, so be mindful of that. (Covering is not the right word for it, I’m really just mentioning it.) This is also act one’s finale, so next chapter will be the start of act two, which will span Sakura’s entire Academy ‘career’ up to Wave - at least, that’s my plan for now. 
> 
> Act one will probably be the shortest one and it’s next chapter that things really start to pick up.
> 
> Enough talk, go and read on! Hope you enjoy the new chapter! :D

(☀| ☾)

Inner and Sakura wake up at the same time that day, contrasting emotions and feelings being blasted over their mental link. For Sakura, she’s beyond excited, almost vibrating with anticipation and the onslaught of gibberish and mumbling that Inner gets to hear certainly helps wake her up. 

And Inner? Inner’s just tired. 

None of what Sakura is saying makes sense and as she tries to ask her about it, she gets no answer, the pinkette obviously too focused on whatever this _‘sunlight’_ thing is all about. In fact, she’s _so_ absorbed in whatever she’s talking about that it takes over three minutes of Inner just calling her name before the girl notices. 

“Oh? Yes, Inner?” Sakura thinks, before devolving into a mumbling mess once more. “Inner, you will never believe what just happened - it’s so cool and we can be one of the strongest ninja with it if only we learn to use it! It’s such a cool bloodline limit and if we have it then we’d be able to keep up with the clan kids and-“

Inner interrupts her, still justifiably confused. _“I’m sorry, what? Why are you talking about a bloodline limit? We’re a civilian family and the odds of one just suddenly developing are so low, that it’s not even worth talking about.”_

Sakura’s already gotten up and changed into her casual clothing. She heads into the hall, floor immaculate (and unstained with crimson). As she walks down the hall, Inner notices that none of the lights turn on for them, and that the hall seems to stay uncomfortably quiet and still, no longer guiding them to the library by themselves. And yet, for some strange reason, Inner knows where they’re heading, and she’s sure that Sakura knows too. It fills her with a strange unease and she wonders what exactly could have changed over the span of one night.

( _Too much_ , Inner will later think, fighting for their lives on the battlefield. _Too much_.)

After a few minutes of walking, in which neither of them speak up, Sakura creaks open the red door, the bright morning sun almost blinding her for a moment as it shines in her face. Inner looks around the room, trying to ignore the fact that it seems like something has changed completely, and how the library no longer feels familiar. 

(The library feels odd, but not in a bad way, with the energy inside the place being more calm. It’s as if there was something that was being built up in for the past two years, and it’s only just now settled. Perhaps it was unfinished business now complete? Though even then, it may still be only partially finished, considering there is still an element of suspense and tension in the room, caught only by Inner’s senses.)

The entire place seems like it’s been almost revamped, if that’s the right word to use. It’s clean, much cleaner than it was before, to Inner’s chagrin. 

(The reason being that no matter how hard Inner and Sakura tried, there were just certain places that they never could clean, like the corners of the ceiling or the tops of dusty bookshelves, places that would have stayed dirty until they could have cleaned them.)

But now, the place feels brand new, with the air no longer smelling like dust, and the windows no longer as foggy as before.

Inner glances at the table and sees the diary ( _how_ does she know it’s a diary?) sitting on the table, seemingly untouched - even as Inner knows it’s not. There’s another book beside it, the cover reading out _‘The Principles of the Haruno Bloodline.”_ And suddenly things start to seem much clearer.

Sakura can sense the awe and shock from Inner’s side and is the first to speak up. “Cool, huh?” She walks towards the bookshelves, brushing her hands over the spines of once dusty books now clean anew. She tries to pull out a book, just to try it out, and to both Sakura and Inner’s surprise, it gives a bit. Still not enough to actually pull it out, but where the covers never once moved, such a small movement still means something has changed. Something big.

(Inner watches Sakura try to pull out an entire bookshelf’s worth of books before she tentatively tells Sakura about the other book on the table, the unfamiliar one, and Sakura blinks, before rushing towards the table.)

It’s not nearly as simple as the diary on the table, covered in ornate decals, swirling gold lines contrasting on an obsidian black cover. And of course, there’s still no author. It’s lacking the seal on the bottom corner of the page, like the one the diary has, but it has something different altogether. There’s a lock set in the middle of the cover, shaped like a sun, multiple circles in the middle jutting out slightly before retreating back in, making a small indent like a crater, the perfect size for a small child’s thumb, like Sakura’s own. It fits perfectly, although it’s already been unsealed, crimson dots lining the lock.

(Fuinjutsu, a voice unlike Inner’s titters in her head.)

She flips open the book to the first page, an introduction letter - this time, there is no voice in her head or something in her heart telling her that she needs to start anywhere else or that she only needs to read a certain part, so she chooses to start from the beginning and read until the end. Inner sighs, being able to sense Sakura’s excitement and just gets ready for a whole day spent reading.

She is proven wrong in a few minutes, when the first page after the table of contents starts talking about the nature of chakra itself. 

_‘Chakra can be split into many categories, but the type most useful to the Haruno clan’s methods is not something that many people can use. A Haruno’s body is predisposed to being able to wield such a type of chakra but even that only gives the potential of using it. Only one’s will and devotion can increase the strength of the bond between the user and the sun.’_

Sakura’s only response is rereading the paragraph in confusion, trying to find a detail she might have missed to try and make the paragraph make sense. Is it a nature transformation, or something else? Inner pipes up, saying that _theoretically_ , it could be a mixture of fire and lightning affinities, but neither of them really believe that. It doesn’t match what the descriptions said the light could do. Yes, it could burn like lightning and be wielded and manipulated like fire, but it also had the fluidity of water, the strength of earth and the freedom and wild nature of the wind.

(And a mixture of all these affinities isn’t possible, of course.)

She keeps reading, ignoring but never dismissing the first paragraph, at least for now.

_‘Our power, aptly dubbed ‘Light Release,’ consists primarily of spiritual energy, and it is age and experience that strengthens the beams of light one can create. This book, meant for beginners, will not teach any of these things; rather, it will teach the necessary chakra control to eventually be able to mould and shape light into any shape. These skills can then later be applied to other areas where control is key, like sensing and healing.’_

Lovely, so she can be a medic if light bending thing doesn’t work out for her. But she wants to be a front line fighter, protecting others not by healing their existing injuries, but by preventing them in the first place.

(Years later, she will think back on this moment and wonder, “Why not both?”)

_‘While the user may not be harmed by their light, the reason why control is so essential is because if left unchecked, the sun can cut through near everything, including people and buildings. And while a sun bender might not be able to be killed by light itself, a falling building certainly will.’_

Inner snorts. “Who would be dumb enough to wield what essentially is a laser indoors?” Sakura rolls her eyes. You would be surprised.

_‘If one had to describe ‘Light Release’ as one type of chakra, it would be as the type of chakra used in Senjutsu, though even that is incorrect. Senjutsu chakra is created by mixing one’s own chakra with natural energy, thus allowing for Sage techniques and Sage mode to occur. In ‘Light Release,’ this is not the case. Sage mode is extremely different when compared to ‘Light Release’ because of the difference in chakra. No mixing of chakra occurs, and the light itself is made wholly of natural energy, with no normal chakra actually in the light. Thus, absorbing it would lead to other side effects of absorbing natural energy, like transformations into animals, and then stone. The Haruno’s have a higher tolerance for natural energy, but absorbing too much will still lead to side effects._

_As such, the name ‘Light Release’ is misleading in itself, considering that the light is derived from the environment and sunlight itself. The technique is not creating light from one’s own chakra stores, but rather manipulating one’s own chakra to bend and wield light. There is no actual ‘release’ that other ‘Release’ techniques have, like the ‘Ice Release’, ‘Lava Release’, and most famously, the ‘Wood Release.’ Therefore, when a light bender wishes to stop manipulating their light, they cannot simple stop, and must instead slowly release it back into the environment with enough control to ensure that there is no explosion from an abrupt release of chakra. Once again, leading back to the fallen building example: the light itself will not harm, but any collateral damage caused by the light, like an explosion, will most certainly cause damage to one’s self.’_

The next page is a description of chakra control techniques, and so is the page after that, and the one after that one, and the page after that page as well.

“Should we try it then?” Sakura asks, a bit unsure. “The control techniques, I mean. Not light bending.”

 _“Sure,”_ Inner says. _“It sure would be nice not to be turned into a statue.”_

And that’s that. Those words set their training schedule for the next few years. Control, practicing more control, and controlling to build up control. Great.

But first she has to ask her ANBU friend what chakra feels like.

...

“You want to know what chakra feels like?”

Sakura nods.

“Well, it’s different for everybody. We don’t have the same affinity- what? No, that shouldn’t be possible. Huh. Anyways, going from my own experiences, and looking at your affinity, it should feel warm and overflowing, like you’ve just tried to swallow the sun.

Inner can only laugh and whisper. _“We didn’t try. We succeeded.”_

[☀]

She is seven when she is given her own diary of sorts. She likes to refer to it as a journal, but it is essentially a log of her life. She’s sure her mom meant for her to write about happy things, like her play dates or her friends, and she does...sometimes. It’s just that most of the book is dedicated to her training regimen and what she’s already covered. Flipping through the book will give her the best sense of where she needs to improve more. (She thinks after each exercise that maybe now it’s been enough, that maybe she can stop training, but then she reads _another_ account about how the Harunos were once a mighty clan brought down by their hubris and ignorance, and she trains some more.) She also writes in a few dates retroactively, just so she doesn’t miss anything.

...

_Y7, 06/07: Completed the first chakra control exercise. Took a few months to be able to stick a leaf onto my forehead, but was easier and harder when Inner tried to get involved. Felt...different. Should try again to see what changed._

_Y7, 06/29: Completed the first exercise again, this time with Inner directly involved with her chakra control. Found that it takes longer and is a bit harder when Inner is directly involved, but that my control is much better when she’s in harmony with me. Each side has its own advantages and disadvantages, I suppose. Doing it by myself is both easier and faster, meant for rapid-fire techniques where control isn’t as important, while control with Inner gives better results and less wasted chakra but takes up valuable seconds trying to sync with Inner, so it should be used for things not as time-sensitive but where control is vital._

_Y7, 08/21: Tried the second exercise today. Apparently it’s a Haruno-specific technique, but I’m not judging. You’re supposed to stay completely still in the sun and feel the chakra in the sun. I felt a little of it, obviously not perfected but it worked. I still only have an hour or so each day to work on this, considering I’m a bit busy with other things, so I think I’m making good progress so far._

_Y7, 09/16: It’s getting a bit cold these days, so I’ll have to stop with sensing the chakra in the sun if I don’t want to freeze to death. Back to leaves, I guess._

_Y8, 03/29: It’s the day after my birthday, so Inner and I have decided to try it out. Light bending, that is. Wish me luck. We’re trying out the easiest technique first. It’s collecting light into an orb, which is the natural shape it likes to take. Is it meant to be like the sun?_

_Y8, 04/03: I found that you can’t manipulate sunlight when it doesn’t exist, which seems obvious, but I wanted to check, just in case. If it’s cloudy, then neither the Haruno-specific control exercises nor the light orb exercise will work._

_Y8, 05/18: More progress made with control and the orb. I can sort of move it around now and push it away and pull it towards me, though it moves at a snail’s pace at the moment. The book mentions that it can sense hesitation and so will move slowly or quickly depending on the user? I’m not sure, but I know that I sure can’t just stop being afraid of a **deadly** _ **_weapon_ ** _. I’m heading to the Academy soon, so these entries will probably stop until I graduate, considering I won’t have nearly as much time to practice, so there won’t be a whole lot of progress, but just making sure that it still works._

[☀|☀]

Sakura’s mother has had ups and downs with her only daughter, but as she’s sending her daughter to her first day at the Academy, she knows she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“It’s time to head to the Academy, isn’t it?” She says, fixing the red ribbon that Ino gave her daughter. Sakura never takes it off any more and if anybody asked, she would tell you that she thinks it happens to be kind of cute.

“Mhm!” Sakura says, nodding excitedly at her mother. “I’ll get to see Ino every day now!” There’s a naivety in her daughter’s face and she can only hope that Sakura will keep it in her eyes for as long as she can, even as the logical part of her brain whispers about how ninja will have to kill to survive and having such kindness in Sakura’s heart will end up killing her.

She loves her daughter and she just wants the best for her little Sakura. If the best is sending her to the Academy, then she will ignore her doubts and hope that what’s best for Sakura isn’t the same as what will kill her.

[☀]

Sakura feels really bad about lying to her mother, but she knows that she can’t afford to be caught. Maybe one day, she’ll tell somebody, but until then, she has learned to hide the physical traits that learning how to light bend has given her. She has always been a Haruno, but her ancestors marrying civilians for a few generations has led to a diluted bloodline, making it so the noticeable traits from the Harunos of old have basically disappeared. But light bending has renewed those bonds, and so her body has changed to try and match the Harunos of old, the ones that were quite literally built to handle the energy of the sun. 

Over the span of a year - it’s already been a year since the fateful day in the library - her hair glistens gold when she isn’t paying attention, not too much that it can’t just be passed off as highlights, but too much to be unnoticed. Her eyes flicker between green and golden yellow, the difference clear as night and day if one is paying attention, and so she’s gotten into the habit of looking down or wearing a light Henge over her eyes - she got ANBU-san to teach her after she stole his dango. She doesn’t cover her hair with it because she’s not sure how much chakra she can get away with using until the teachers start to suspect it and sense it.

(Inner mentions to her one day how her eyes seem much more like the moon than the sun. “They aren’t gold enough to be the sun, rather, they look a brilliant pale yellow, like the moon in a foggy night. Sakura stares into her eyes for a few seconds, trying to memorize every imperfection, every spot, before she shrugs and agrees. They do look much more like the moon than the sun.)

It’s time to go to class and meet her classmates. They put her in class A-1 and by the end of the day, she has the urge to punch a few of them in the face. She’s not sure whether it’s her feeling that or whether it’s Inner projecting her own annoyances. 

Whatever.

She’s almost one hundred percent positive that if she tried, she would be able to graduate this year and be labeled as the ‘next prodigy,’ but she eventually decides against it. She’d mentioned it to ANBU-san a while ago and he’d trailed off while talking like he was recalling a memory, before shaking his head and saying it was a bad idea.

She’d taken his word for it.

  
(☀|✫)  
  


Sakura has been acting odd these days, and he’s noticed. The nine year old is odd normally, but this is just a completely different level. Adjusting his porcelain mask, he lands on her rooftop, searching for the pink-haired girl. It all started a year and a half ago, when her chakra signature abruptly changed, going from a cool yet firm earth-water affinity, to a blistering bright fire affinity. He wonders if she’s noticed, but shrugs it off. It’s not like she’s using elemental affinities yet, so does it really matter?

He heads over to their ‘training ground’ of sorts, a small clearing in their backyard, surrounded by trees. He hasn’t been here in a while, having been on a mission outside of the village. Sorry, no details, it’s classified. He also specifically didn’t tell Sakura when he would come back - he wanted it to be a surprise for her. 

He notices a few trees scorched in lines as if lightning had decided to strike, and stops to investigate one of them. They look relatively fresh and could just be chalked up to a storm he missed while in Wind Country, but the thing that’s really odd is the smell, or rather the absence of it. There’s no signature ozone smell that comes with natural lightning, and the pattern of burns points to someone using lightning chakra instead of a freak natural storm. It’s leading to the clearing.

He runs.

Sakura is there, and only Sakura. Sakura, who is the girl he’s been teaching how to throw shuriken and kunai since she was four. Sakura, the pinkette who he’s sure will take the world by storm, showing that clans sometimes aren’t worth it, with their politics and deceit and _treason and coups._

Sakura, who is wielding a whip made of pure light.

She glances over at the noise, dispelling the weapon. When she notices who it is, her eyes widen and she rushes over to him. She checks him over to make sure he hasn’t broken anything from falling out of a tree in shock, before she looks him dead in the eyes - well, the porcelain eyes.

“I can explain, I swear!”

(That conversation is both the weirdest one he’s ever had with Sakura and the second last one he’ll have at all.)

“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you should tell people. Hiding something this big will come back to hurt you eventually, whether through accidentally spilling secrets to the sheer pressure of it all.” He runs up the nearest tree while waving goodbye at the special little pink-haired girl. He needs to process it. “And a secret for a secret, Sakura-chan! Uchiha Shisui! My name! Don’t forget it!”

(|✫|)

When Sakura hears of the Uchiha Massacre days later, it is only then that she learns of his passing, hidden from the _civilians_ , and she chokes on the word, spitting it out with so much spite, crying, even though he had been dead for days prior, and so she weeps. Not for the clan itself, but for one of her only friends and her mentor. She later resolves to never tell anybody about her inner light. She may act like an adult but she is still a child nonetheless and in her grief-stricken mind, she thinks about how he had died a few hours after he had told her _his name_ , from _suicide_ no less, and even as Inner whispers calming words and reassurances in her ear, she wonders if she’s the reason **_why_ **.

_act one: end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: this chapter sure is jam-packed with plot, isn’t it. (*cough cough* look for the hints I left in the story *cOUGH*) Anyways, we get the reveal with Inner, the reveal of ANBU-san, the mess with the massacre, her entry into the Academy, the thing with the journal mentioned in the summary, and a whole lot more.
> 
> And I ask: Are you not entertained?
> 
> I’m also changing tags after this, so to any new readers, I’m half sorry that you’ll get the story a bit spoiled but c’est la vie.
> 
> (Leave a kudos if you enjoyed and talk to me in the comments: it makes my entire day to talk with one of you!)
> 
> See you next Thursday!


	7. act two, chapter one: unexpected meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a book sitting by the side of her desk, one that had just called out to her when she’d found it, but she’d had no time to actually read it these days, what with the whole school thing. Sakura hadn’t wanted to start the book when she’d known that she wouldn’t have been able to finish the thing without a huge pause in the middle as she tried to acclimate to the Academy.
> 
> It’s a simple book, not nearly as ornate as any of the other books in the library, not even the mess of one in her hand. It’s not colored, with the cover being paperback and worn yellow with age. There’s a black and white version of the Haruno clan symbol - which is really just a ring - on the front cover, right below the title of the book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: welcome back to my story! I hope you enjoyed last week - or last chapter if you just started - and I equally hope you’ll enjoy this week’s chapter. We’re on to act two and the academy, so get ready for: 
> 
> -original characters that actually contribute to the plot and aren’t as useless as a damp pillow  
> -Sakura having to deal with other civilians and orphans  
> -a surprise appearance from everyone’s least favorite Academy teacher
> 
> And of course, worldbuilding (if you count more info on the Harunos as worldbuilding)!
> 
> Enjoy!

[☀]

Sakura walks through the streets, hand in hand with her mother. They’re heading to the Academy for her first day of school there. She’d just turned eight a few weeks ago and she’d been signed up for the spring semester right after, considering she hadn’t wanted to wait for the winter term, even though it was the one most clan kids attended. As such, she’s aware that she’ll probably be the best in her class, since most of the students will be civilian as well.

(She chooses not to think about _why_ the school runs on a cycle, even though it must be an administrative nightmare and much harder than just having one school schedule and not two. After all, they need new ninja the whole year around, _new cannon fodder in both summer and winter_ -)

Her mother stops to talk with store owners and vendors every few minutes, picking up groceries and snacks on the way, some for Sakura to take with her and others meant to be stored at home.

“Hello there, Mebuki-san! First day of school for little Sakura, is it?”

“Ah, yes, it is! How’d you know?”

As her mother waves goodbye to the dango vendor, Sakura looks around at her unfamiliar surroundings. She’s never gone out of the sector she lives in, it being just one of five civilian sections of the ninja village. (It might seem like a lot, but there are twelve sectors in total, six for ninja and one for administration. When you consider that civilians in Konoha outnumber the ninja five to one, it starts to seem not so fair.) They’ve just exited the civilian side of the village, and Sakura sighs at the unfamiliarity of it all. She’s leaving her books and toys and life behind her to go and train to get stronger. She will begrudgingly admit that the training at the Academy will go a long way to helping her get stronger, if only for the fact that she needs a variety of sparring partners to make sure she doesn’t become predictable.

 _“It’ll be fine! And if your classmates seem like idiots, then just beat them up.”_ Inner mumbles, and Sakura can’t tell whether she’s joking or not. 

_“Well, that’s certainly not a very productive strategy. We’ll get mobbed again.”_ The pinkette sighs, rolling her eyes both in real life and as a thought sent to Inner.

 _“What can I say? Children tend to be stupid.”_ Inner says and Sakura ignores the hypocrisy of the statement in favour of glancing at the towering building in front of her. 

The Academy. The place where children become ninja, where innocents become killers. Sakura has to push down a full-body shudder when she thinks about it. It’s not right, and she’s almost certain that she probably would believe in the doctrine if she hadn’t had Inner with her. For all their sugar-coated words and honey-sweet promises, a killer is still a killer.

_(The civilian school she’d gone to had a ninja visitor one day, a chunin. She was a dark-haired, fair-skinned girl, looking to be in her mid twenties. Nothing about her would stand out in a civilian school, with her plain coloring and no noticeable ninja-like features, like the inked fangs on an Inuzuka or the pale, almost lifeless eyes of a Hyuga._

_And perhaps that was the point._

_She’d whispered promises of glory, of the greatest feeling in the world to experience. And when one kid asked what that feeling was, she had looked straight into the kid’s eyes and had said, “Serving for your village.” And Inner had gone quiet for a few moments, before she whispered in Sakura’s ear, a bit unsure and a lot disturbed, “She’s serious. I can sense that she actually believes what she just said.”_

_Perhaps that was the first sign that something was wrong. It’s not like Sakura hates the Leaf, it’s just that she sees no reason why she would want to die for her village. Yes, Sakura’s aware that to some, her thoughts border on treasonous - certainly not thoughts fit for a future shinobi - but at this point, she does not particularly care. For while other people might see themselves as pawns to be used by someone else’s hand, Sakura sees the entire board and she plays, not as a piece in the game, but as one of the game makers themselves._

_And yet, on the other side of the void stands a figure, blurred and unrecognizable. She’s still not sure who she’s playing against.)_

Heading up the stairs of the Academy, she stops at the front door when the guard there says that only students are allowed in. Her mother has tears in her eyes, and she gives Sakura a big hug, before heading back towards the civilian sector, before heading back _home_. The ninja at the gate gives her a quick glance, before scoffing and letting Sakura pass. She knows what she looks like at the moment - or what she’s made herself look like - a small, shy kid, pink hair useless on stealth missions, unique coloring that would give her away. And even though she knows the reasoning behind it, the fact that this ninja has just dismissed her as just one of the civvie kids who’ll drop out in a term after they realize that being a ninja isn’t all fun and games gets on her nerves.

She’s led into a small auditorium with the rest of the kids. Most of them either look skittish or haughty, so Sakura writes most of them off as hopeless cases from the start. The flighty ones look like orphans, in their tattered, hastily mended clothing, and the arrogant ones are so civilian it hurts to look at them, with a few clan members - not clan heads - in the mix. They gather in already assembled cliques and titter about how they'll become the ‘best ninja’ and Inner laughs in Sakura’s mind - not unkindly, just realistically. 

There’s two people that stand out to her in the crowd. There’s a Uchiha sitting in the corner by themselves - wallowing, Inner says - dressed in the traditional high collar of the Uchiha, the clan fan bright on the back of the jacket. With her wrists and ankles already wrapped, she looks the most like a ‘real shinobi’ out of all the children here, which doesn’t surprise Sakura, considering the Uchiha are currently the strongest clan in the village, no matter what the Hyuga like to claim. The side effect of this is that the rest of the kids give her a wide berth, staying as far as possible without making it seem _too_ rude. (Whether from fear or from awe, Sakura’s not sure.)

The Uchiha have been ostracized since the Kyuubi, so it’s not surprising that the children would learn from the adults and shun the clan too. (She’d learned about the demon fox from a drunk old man on the side of the road, who’d thrown glass bottles at the blonde boy as he ran past her a few years ago. She’d heard him curse about the tailed beasts and monsters in human skin and for a moment, she’d wondered if she counted.)

The girl’s a standard Uchiha, jet-black hair, fair and milky pale skin, but the Uchiha have always stood out in the village. Black hair and white skin in a sea of browns and tanned faces makes it hard for them to blend in, after all. She could go and talk to her, but she’s almost certain that there are ANBU in the room, hidden from sight, and she has no desire to be dragged to T&I, or worse, killed. She doesn’t need that attention right now. (Maybe when she’s skilled enough to be certain that nobody’s listening in?)

The other kid is an orphan, just the same as the rest of them, apart from one key difference. Where the other orphans look bedraggled and tired, this one looks energized and alert, with such a noticeable difference between them that one might not realize that she’s an orphan at all. In fact, the only thing outing her as an orphan is her flightiness and anxious nature, uncommon in clan kids when she glances around the room slowly, twitching fingers betraying her true feelings.

She’s dressed in a similar fashion as the Uchiha, with only her ankles wrapped in black ninja bands, shirt and pants both a faded blue, azure and navy respectively, with a belt on her waist, made of the same material as her ankle wraps are. There’s a patch on her left cuff, stretching all the way around her sleeve, more like a band than anything else. There’s what Sakura assumes is a clan logo embroidered onto it, a circle with two cyan waves inside, separated by the darker blue sky by an outline of sapphire blue, a pale blue circle - a moon? - above the waves outlined in blue, darker than anything else. Her eyes are keen and her reflexes are sharp, displayed when she backflips out of a person’s reach when they try to grab her, brown hair and attentive eyes surveying the room all the while. At first glance, she seems affronted at the action, before sheepishly pulling out a wallet and handing it back to the civilian kid.

 _“She’ll be suited for either assassination or stealth missions, with that skillset.”_ Inner remarks, processing the information from Sakura’s side. _“A decently skilled orphan with no real attachments, considering she hasn’t talked to a single person here for the sake of making friends? She’s perfect for ANBU. In fact, she might get picked up early and sent for training there instead.”_ Sakura subtly nods, making sure it looks like she’s just stretching out her neck - but Inner can see the intent behind it and understands.

 _‘We should probably talk with a few people as well, lest we start to attract the same type of attention.’_ Sakura thinks to Inner, who sends back feelings of confirmation. Looking around from where she’s standing - at the doors of the auditorium - she sees a few empty seats next to a few obviously civilian girls and sits down. Listening to what they’re saying, she holds in a scoff and joins the conversation.

“But why wouldn’t you wear your white qipao while you’re at school? You look so good in it!” One of the girls, face covered in subtle, but still clearly there, makeup, huge pearl earrings dangling in her ears, nestled in her long coffee-colored hair, says, almost offended by the thought of not looking _perfect_ every single day.

The girl in question only rolls her eyes. “Look at all these orphans. Their grubby hands would ruin the silk if they touched it.”

Sakura inserts her into the conversation, trying to sound as condescending as possible when she talks, even if she doesn’t agree with what she’s saying, not even a little. (The brown-haired orphan would be a better ninja than all of you combined.) “It would get dirty, and I’m certain that any of them would take any chance to steal such a pretty dress for themselves.”

Another girl looks at her, only just noticing the new person. She gives Sakura a look, before settling back down, almost as if approving of what Sakura is wearing. “Yeah! By the way, I love your outfit, but as a tip, the ribbon doesn’t suit your hair. Blonde highlights in pink hair, no matter how faint they are, don’t go well with red.”

Sakura thanks her, even as Inner rares in her head, telling Sakura to punch her in the face - that would not be productive, _stop that_ \- and right as she’s about to say something, one of the ninja at the front of the room clears their throat loudly to get everybody’s attention. The curtains covering the front of the stage open, and the Sandaime steps out to the podium.

His speech is relatively lacklustre to her, but she can see that all the other kids are entranced as soon as he starts talking, so she does the same. It’s not perfect, no, but she’s really just hoping that nobody notices her.

_(Why would they? She’s a weird civilian. Who cares? She’ll later learn that she doesn’t even need to be that careful, she just needs to be smart about it.)_

“Children of Konoha, it is my honor to welcome you into the Academy. You will have the privilege of learning how to be a ninja from one of our finest ninja and will learn how to be the best you can be. It is my greatest pleasure to look into this crowd and see not children, but competent ninjas in the making, able and willing to serve our great village in the best way possible.”

She tunes out the rest of the speech, still mentally gaping at what he’s just said. She senses Inner in her mind, who’s just as flabbergasted as she is at the moment. But learning how to talk with Inner has taught her to carefully hide her emotions on the surface, considering she has to talk with Inner during her lessons with ANBU-san, and he hasn’t brought it up yet. She’s also gotten better at multitasking, and she can hold a conversation with Inner and a person in the real world at the same time now. (The issue is she looks bored while she hides her emotions, face sliding into her default poker face, but one could simply dismiss it as actual boredom and not heavily disguised horror.)

 _“Are you serious?”_ Inner screeches, making Sakura mentally wince at the perceived volume, and Inner tones it down a bit. _“Anyways, is he serious? That is blatantly manipulation of young children.”_

 _“Isolating them from their parents at the gate, having a constant but never intrusive ninja presence, having all your comfort taken away before a ‘kind old man’ tells you about how you’re important, making it easier to trust him and potentially put him in front of your own family?”_ Sakura mentally lists off.

Inner continues, scowling all the while. _“He also mentions how it’s his honor and how it’s his pleasure to make children into killing machines, leaving them somewhat indebted to him, like they should thank him for teaching them how to end a life. Ugh.”_

 _“Say what you want about their morals, but they’re smart. If I was a normal child, I’d have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.”_ Sakura comments.

 _“Hah!”_ Inner’s smile turns sharper now as she laughs. _“But you aren’t a normal child, are you?”_ When Sakura sends feelings of bemusement over their link, Inner cackles almost maliciously. _“You’ve got me on your side, and together, we’ll take the world by storm. The old man won’t know what hit him.”_

_“Right you are, Inner. Right you are.”_

...

After the speech, the Hokage steps off the stage and leaves through the back entrance. One of the teachers, a man with a gruff expression and a scar from one side of his jaw to the other, like a demented smile on the bottom of his chin, almost hidden from sight until he tilts his head upwards a bit, is the one to stand up and speak out. “Now for class assignments,” he says. “Since there aren’t as many shinobi children this term, we won’t be having segregated classes for different skill levels. Instead, we’ll be having two classes of mixed level and you’ll be moved up or down as seen fit.”

“He means that since there are so many civilian kids and orphans, that the classes will be random because the administration is sure that so many kids will drop out so quickly into the school year that it won’t matter what class anybody is put into.” Inner whispers.

As he calls out the names - “Iguchi Naiko, 1-B.” - Sakura watches the girls next to her leave before her and head to their classes. 

“Go Furuya, 1-A.”

“Gobu Kazuki, 1-B.”

“Hanamura Daigo, 1-A.”

“Hanamura Asa, 1-B.”

“Hanyuda Hanshiro, 1-A.”

“Haruno Sakura, 1-B.”

Sakura stands up when she hears her name and heads towards where the chunin is pointing. Passing the first few doors - unlabelled as they are, she assumes they aren’t class 1-B - she reaches a wooden door, and she can already hear the children inside screaming and talking. Entering the room, she sits down at one of the window seats, still close enough to the board, but not in the front two rows.

She stares out the window for a few minutes as the rest of the class screams around her, silent but observing the scene around her. The Uchiha and the orphan kid are both in her class, sitting alone in the back corner and casually looking around for anything valuable, respectively. It only takes a few more minutes before the teacher walks in and starts roll call. The orphan kid is called first and Sakura idly notes that she’s one of the few orphan children who actually have a last name, considering a good portion of the class is called out as _“Konoha no,”_ as opposed to having an actual last name.

It seems to be new to her as well, considering that she doesn’t reply until the teacher just says “Chikanari,” dropping the surname altogether. Sakura recognizes the clan as a minor one - they _must_ be minor if they’ve resorted to adopting orphans with potential, she thinks, for while it isn’t odd for clans to take wards, said wards almost never take the clan’s surname for themselves and as such, are never trained in secret clan techniques.

There’s another child wearing the same symbol stitched on his sleeve, but unlike the girl, remembers to answer to his full name. He glares at the orphan girl and Sakura can’t help but assume there’s what essentially is a ticking time bomb stuck between the two children. From the way the boy acts and the quality of his clothing compared to Chikanari‘s and Sakura’s, both Sakura and Inner come to the conclusion that he’s a clan kid; born into the clan and raised in clan traditions.

 _“Jealousy?”_ Inner muses. _“Or perhaps it’s a sense of inferiority because he wasn’t good enough to stop his clan from adopting a random orphan off the street?”_

“Kyunami Tatsuya?”

“Present.”

Role call continues - Sakura replying when her name is mentioned - and the Uchiha is the last one on the roster, with no Watases or Yamanakas to follow after. The teacher calls out “Uchiha Hikari” and the pale girl raises her hand silently, seeming bored all the while. 

_“Well, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if she was bored, would it, Sakura? After all, she’s likely been training to be a ninja since she could crawl.”_ Inner remarks, indifferent to it all.

 _“Yeah, but we’ve been training for quite some time as well.”_ Sakura says, stressing exactly how long they’ve been training. _“The Academy curriculum is meant for kids with no ninja skills or background knowledge. We’re going to be bored too!”_

Inner rolls her eyes. _“It’s not like you’ll be paying attention anyways; I’ll be the one actually listening. You’ll just be reading your book for the week.”_

 _“Hey! The Second Edition of the Complete Atlas of Comets is an interesting read!”_ Sakura weakly protests, though even to her, the argument sounds weak. _“You would read it too.”_ She mumbles.

Both girls are brought back to the present when the teacher slaps his ruler on the desk, the sound echoing through the room. He’s a chunin with light blue-grey hair, stopping at shoulder length, and though his face is warm and his eyes seem kind, there’s a faint shadow of malice hiding underneath the surface. Sakura has to give credit where credit is due though, it’s highly unlikely that anybody in the room or even one of the other chunin teachers could notice it, and Sakura only realizes because of Inner.

 _“Yeah, he’s **evil**.” _ Inner states, leaving no room for argument. _“There’s hate and a lot of jealousy that he’s projecting. He’s not even trying to be subtle.”_ Sakura sends Inner a confused look, as if to say ‘are we seeing the same thing right now?’

_“I think he’s hiding it just fine. It’s just because you can sense emotions that it seems obvious.”_

Inner rolls her eyes. _“Well,_ **_obviously_ ** _.”_

They turn their attention back to the teacher who - considering their conversations happen at a rate much faster than a normal conversation - has just started to introduce themselves. “Mizuki-sensei,” he says, and then he starts her first lesson: an introduction to being a ninja. It’s oddly dark, considering the sugar-coated nature of the previous speeches, from the Hokage’s ‘loyalty to the village’ to the visiting ninja’s ‘serving your village’ speeches.

It doesn’t make much sense to scare half the students away now when the other speeches were meant to convince them to become ninja. Or does it? Sakura mentions her idea to Inner. _“It could be that they wanted everyone to sign up, but now that they’ve gotten everyone, they want to weed out the people who they know will never become ninja.”_

Inner can only nod, seeing the logic behind it. _“It would also build trust between the students and the Hokage, considering that they would remember his nice words when they’re suffering under their chunin-sensei.”_ She frowns, her actual face mimicking the action. _“Are we being too judgemental? Maybe this ‘Mizuki-sensei’ isn’t a heartless person?”_

At that moment, said ‘Mizuki sensei’ finishes his lesson and stands up, calling for the other children to follow him out of the classroom. When one of the civilian children asks where they’re going, the man doesn’t immediately respond, waiting until they get there. Inner recognizes it as the training ground mentioned on the map they were given, and tells Sakura such. Their teacher stops and turns around to face them. “We’re having a physical assessment. Five laps around the field, then ten pushups and ten sit-ups.”

Sakura scowls at Inner. _“You jinxed it.”_

The person in question shrugs sheepishly. _“Well, it’s not that bad. You’ll be fine.”_

“Timed for ten minutes.” Their teacher says, seemingly out of nowhere.

Sakura glares at Inner, annoyance flooding the other girl’s sensors. As their teacher blows a whistle, she starts to run, having to hold back to stay in the crowd, which is actually harder than just running at her fastest. _“Forget our teacher, I’m going to kill_ **_you_ ** _instead.”_

Inner nervously chuckles.

[☀]

Sakura gets home tired and annoyed. She’d just spent the better part of her _first_ day of school doing those _exercises_ and while granted, she wasn’t exhausted like the other children, that doesn’t mean that she’d _enjoyed_ any part of it. Setting her small bag down on the table - they hadn’t been given textbooks yet - she shrugs when her mom asks her what she’d like for dinner. She hangs up her jacket and heads to her room, travelling through the hallways and corridors.

(The interesting thing is that while Sakura knows where she’s going now - after the incident - her parents are still confused, which leads to Sakura occasionally finding them lost in the hallways or having to lead them to where they want to go.)

Sakura settles down on her bed, tired enough that she wants to lie down but not exhausted enough that she wouldn’t want to read. Her latest find, “Cosmology,” is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s too bare bones and full of guesses and assumptions to actually be scientific of any sort, but Sakura ignores it. There’s still some good information in it, if you just ignore the weird posturing the supposed author included. (Still no author, _of course_.)

She’s been reading this book for a while, even though, yes, she could just ask Inner to help her and she would be finished in a few minutes, but she reads these books for her own pleasure and amusement, so she has no need to finish them in a hurry. (That type of rush is meant for the boring biased _mandatory_ textbooks she’d seen included on her syllabus for the year. _Joy_.)

There’s a book sitting by the side of her desk, one that had just called out to her when she’d found it, but she’d had no time to actually read it these days, what with the whole school thing. Sakura hadn’t wanted to start the book when she’d known that she wouldn’t have been able to finish the thing without a huge pause in the middle as she tried to acclimate to the Academy.

It’s a simple book, not nearly as ornate as any of the other books in the library, not even the mess of one in her hand. It’s not colored, with the cover being paperback and worn yellow with age. There’s a black and white version of the Haruno clan symbol - which is really just a ring - on the front cover, right below the title of the book.

_“Basic Technique: Sunbeam Strike”_

It’s written in simple kanji, the font unassuming and bland, but Sakura knows better than to assume that appearances are all that something is. She’s opened the book to see the first page and table of contents and they seem to all be forms of sorts, meant to combine the offensive use of light with a fighting style. Sakura hasn’t actually gotten to read past that, but she’s certain that she’ll get a chance eventually.

Maybe after she’s learned how to use the light better. She still hasn’t learned how to pull the orb of light apart and shape it into a ball. The last time she tried, she may have burnt a whole tree to the ground. It’ll be fine eventually, though. Sakura is sure of that, at least.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Did you enjoy? Well, no worries, because if you didn’t, (you’ve hurt my feelings) I can promise there’ll be action in the next chapter. Not like...chunin exam level action, but there’s a fight that’s not completely skimmed over.
> 
> (Yay.)
> 
> Anyways: this is your friendly reminder that if you enjoyed, leave a kudos! Talk to me in the comments, I promise I don’t bite (hard). 
> 
> (Oh my god, I have always wanted to make that joke, but now that I’ve done it, I feel embarrassed beyond belief.)
> 
> See you next Thursday!~


	8. act two, chapter two: hiding, falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She has to get stronger, if only to be able to feel like she’s worthy of inheriting her clan. It’s been weighing on her mind lately. She’s the last female Haruno by blood, and after reading the exploits of the leaders before her, she feels like she’s lacking a bit. She’ll learn all their clan techniques and be the strongest kunoichi in the village! She’ll figure out why no more Harunos exist in the village, why nobody remembers the Haruno clan. She’ll learn the reason why her house seems to move around her, alive in one sense but dead in another. Why the voices chime in once in a while, giving her helpful hints when she’s training. 
> 
> “For your clan?” Inner asks.
> 
> “For our clan.” Sakura replies, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome! (Nobody: “Not starting with ‘hello hello’ today? Me: :|) Here’s the next chapter of SS/MM - I refuse to call it SIHS/MIHM, that sounds like a disease - so I hope you enjoy! There’s actually plot in this chapter (wow), from Mizuki’s suspicions to new original characters that are important to the plot and semi-important to Sakura to Sakura getting taken down a peg and eating dirt.
> 
> I swear it’s not as weird as it sounds.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

[☀]

It happens a week into her school term - the seventh day of school, a Tuesday of increasing annoyance. Frankly, it’s possibly the hardest thing she’s had to do in years and Inner commentating in her ear throughout the entire process isn’t helping anybody.

_ “It’s not supposed to be this difficult.” _ Inner muses, intrigued by the mess in front of her.  _ “Is it this hard because we just haven’t bothered with it?” _

_ “We hang around clan kids all the time.”  _ Sakura says, trying to both keep up with the conversation she’s having with the other students and making sure she doesn’t look like she’s about to fall asleep or punch somebody across the room. _ “We just have high standards.” _

_ “Oh, high standards? Are you sure that’s the reason, and not the fact that you don’t know how to hold a conversation with anybody but me and Ino?”  _ Inner teases.  _ “I’m flattered you think so highly of me, really.”  _ When Sakura doesn’t reply, Inner tunes in for a second to check on what’s hooked the pinkette’s attention...

“-favorite color?”

“Red or purple for me.”

“Oh, I can totally see it! You would look amazing in it! Besides, I heard red’s  _ his _ favorite too and-“

...And immediately tunes back out again. How does Sakura deal with these simple-minded children?

Sakura internally rolls her eyes as the conversation happening in real life takes a turn for the worse.  _ “Going from talking about clothing to talking about guys doesn’t qualify as an upgrade.”  _ When the girls turn to her to ask what her favorite color is, Sakura blurts out “Red or pink.” and tunes back out once the other girls seem satisfied with her answer. Inner’s only response is a smirk and a remark that she could  _ ‘just transfer into the winter class so she wouldn’t have to deal with idiots for the entire day.’ _

_ “Well, I’ve already signed up for this class so the only way I’d be able to transfer is if there physically aren’t enough students to have even half a class. So, I’m sorry, Inner, but we’re stuck here for the forseeable future.”  _ Sakura sighs, exasperated at both Inner and the girls in front of her, the latter of whom is currently trying to braid one of the other girl’s hair. Judging from the small clump of hair she just pulled out and the aggravated and furious screeching from the other side of the room, Sakura supposes it could be going better. The two girls rush out of the class and Sakura is left alone to talk to Inner.

She glances back at the classroom door, the clock above it reminding her (and the rest of the class) that there are only five more minutes left in break. Definitely not enough time to fix your hair.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it, hanging out with spoiled eight-year olds and all. And yes, the ones we’ve talked to are spoiled considering the orphans almost pass out in shock when we’re anywhere near them. The two girls just now? Case in point.” Inner rants, huffing in annoyance. “But whatever. We’re here to blend in with the other children, just to get a baseline of how incompetent we should be.”

_ “Well, when you put it that way, we seem sort of arrogant.” _ Sakura snorts. Inner shoots her an unimpressed look.  _ “It’s true! No matter how much extra training we’ve had, it’s possible that someone here might be a hidden talent.” _ Sakura argues, slightly defensive, even though, even to her own ears, the argument sounds flimsy.

They sit in silence for the rest of the break, surveying the room lazily. The two girls come back right before Mizuki - she refuses to call the incompetent ditz ‘sensei’ - walks into the class to take afternoon attendance. One of them is now wearing a hat, eyes red and puffy, probably from crying and the other has a increasingly red mark on her face that looks suspiciously like a hand. It’s right dead centre, the palm hitting her nose first. She doesn’t look like she’s cried, but her previously pristine white blouse is now covered in small black streaks clumped together and the girl stares at her now ruined shirt, hands fiddling with the hem.

_ “Mascara streaks?”  _ Sakura thinks, bewildered at what could have happened in five minutes in the bathroom.  _ “How did they get mascara?” _

After a moment of silence from the both of them and Mizuki reading out the names on the attendance list with a bored and fed-up tone, Sakura’s the first to speak up with an extremely obvious distraction.

_ “...So what do you think we’re doing next class? We usually have more running during this block, but Mizuki said we were doing something special today.” _

Inner, thankfully, rolls with the change.  _ “It’s probably some dangerous ninja initiation to scare the useless children away. A week is more than enough time for them to baby us. I thought they were going to teach us.”  _ Inner audibly exhales in frustration, probably at being treated like they’re made of glass.  _ “Damn eight year old brats.” _

Resisting the urge to comment on just how hypocritical that statement is, considering Sakura and Inner are  _ also _ ‘eight year old brats,’ the pinkette blinks absent-mindedly.  _ “Are you sure?” _

_ “Well, it’s either that or something equally stupid. What did you expect?” _

(☀|✷)

Sakura glances at the training field in front of her and the unconscious civilian now being hauled to the infirmary, the culprit standing by the field nonchalantly, tugging on her navy turtleneck. She rolls her eyes at Inner, unimpressed.  _ “I am absolutely blaming this on you.” _

Inner has the gall to look sheepish at this. _ “Well, I technically wasn’t wrong, was I? Having a helpless civilian fight a deadly Uchiha in order to ‘test potential’ seems on par with scaring all the children away via ninja torture.” _ She whistles absentmindedly, the chime-like sound echoing through Sakura’s ears.  _ “Actually, this might be their method of intimidation. Y’know, beat the civilians to an inch of their lives so that only the really determined ones return.” _

_ “You do realize we now have to pretend to get beat up to make sure the Hokage doesn’t get suspicious of our motives and order our arrest, or worse, our...termination.”  _ Sakura hisses out, pausing abruptly at the end. The pinkette refocuses on the other student standing on the field. The girl only levels a look at her victim, pale skin shimmering in the harsh sun, her gaze somehow conveying both apathy and disgust at the same time.

_ “Well, we might be paired up with another civilian for the first round, but with the number and format of the spars we’re doing, it’s highly likely we’ll be facing one of the three or four children in our class that actually know how to fight.” _ Inner remarks, tone drenched in disbelief, as if she hadn’t quite completely thought the consequences of her actions through.  _ “That’ll be enlightening.” _

_ “Enlightening is one way to say it, I suppose.”  _ Sakura comments, a pained expression on her face that any of the other children might mistake as anxiousness from the spar she’ll have to do.  _ “Now we just have to find that happy medium between not being a civilian prodigy and not being the worst in the class.” _

_ “We can probably afford to do worse in physical exams, so long as we do really well in theory, like tests and stuff. I’m talking about being at least top three in the class, top five at the least.”  _ Inner mentions, pensive, before a signature smirk appears in Sakura’s head, lacking a bit of the usual mania involved.  _ “Being a paper ninja and all, y’know?” _

They lapse into a calm silence for a while as the spars play out in front of them. There are a few legitimately interesting fights, like the orphan girl outmaneuvering a boy twice her size, before knocking the boy out with a (sloppy) kick to the head, or the one other clan kid in their class picking up a willowy girl and literally chasing her out of the ring, faster than anyone else in their class so far. Sakura idly wonders if it’s a kekkei genkai or whether it’s just his baseline speed, but quickly dismisses the question. It’s not like the end result changes either way.

Alas, most of the fights play out disappointingly predictably, with both sides having no technique to speak of, resorting to brute force, grins eager for violence or haughty noses turned up at the prospect of physical activity, like they’ve done for all the exercises in the past week. It ends up as a physical strength contest instead, with no strategy or thought at all. As a result, the vast majority of the girls lose their rounds embarrassingly quickly when pitted against a boy, just because of the physical disparity, and the ones who get stuck with other girls have half-hearted fights, before one of them falls out of the ring. It’s honestly embarrassing to see and Sakura internally laments the fact that she’ll have to try and match  _ that _ .

(She’s well aware of the fact that she has no taijutsu technique either, having learned only bits and pieces from ANBU-san when he decides to idly spar when Sakura is running laps or doing something else as equally mind-numbingly boring like pushups, but not nearly enough to have the basics down, let alone be actually proficient with it. But most of the idea behind fighting is common sense - and paranoia, don’t forget the crippling paranoia - and even that is lacking from these children. Though, it’s not like she’s much better if you ignore actually thinking. ANBU-san had made it very clear that he won’t be the one teaching her taijutsu, mentioning the fact that he uses a clan technique which can’t be shared - which answers that unasked question - and that he doesn’t quite remember Academy style, having not used it in many years.

Oh well. That book seems promising though.)

Her name is finally called out and she resists the urge to yawn when her opponent is a girl she’s never heard of. She glances over at the other kid heading to the field. The girl is fidgeting on the spot, wringing her fingers anxiously. She’s dressed in worn clothing, obviously a hand-me-down from one of the other older orphans around. She wasn’t lying about how many orphans go into the ninja system. (And how many used to die.)

It really makes logical sense, doesn’t it? The fact that poorly trained orphans would have the highest mortality rate in the shinobi forces, considering all the disadvantages they have to deal with. No parents usually means no support system, considering the orphanage is notorious for not fostering good relationships between the children there. After all, the best gear is given to the clan kids or the prodigies, the decision made from sound logical sense. The clan kids and the prodigies are stronger, are more  _ valuable _ as a tool to serve the village. The orphans are poorly trained brutes with no finesse, usually only useful for human shields in war. So if the village had to pick?

(It’s only better now because they aren’t at war, though Sakura supposes that the current situation won’t last very long. The world is shifting beneath her feet and she is helpless to do anything.)

She steps into the chalk circle representing the ‘battlefield,’ as Mizuki so  _ eloquently _ put it. The mousy girl facing her looks up at her for a second, before ducking her head nervously, her brown hair fluttering in the calm breeze, obscuring her face. Mizuki counts down from three, signalling the start of the spar and at the count of one, the orphan girl’s demeanour changes quite a bit. No longer was she the meek little girl who cowered underneath Sakura’s (two) piercing gaze(s), not anymore. Sakura tilts her head in curiosity. Another person who’s been hiding?

The girl looks Sakura dead in the eye and has the audacity to smirk, sharp teeth glinting in the harsh sun, and for a moment, Sakura thinks she sees an Inuzuka in the orphan’s place. She has the sharp teeth of one, though they don’t look exactly like Inuzuka fangs. Her eyes go from scared to bold, eyes fiery and almost bloodthirsty and for the first time in years, Sakura feels a shiver run through her, thinking back to ANBU-san’s presence.

(“Killing intent, no matter how weak it may be, can paralyze a person who’s never been exposed to it.” He had said and Sakura, as a naive five year old, had asked if he could use it, and when he said he could, she asked if he could use it on her. He had stopped talking for a moment, pensive and staring at Sakura, as if to see why she wanted to feel killing intent. He’d known that she was one-hundred percent serious about becoming a ninja, and so he relented, but making Sakura aware of his disapproval in her choice.

She’d been frozen, terrified, choking on air, trembling as the feeling bore down on her. Inner had been screaming in her head, not out of anger as she normally did, but out of fear. She’d woken up to ANBU-san poking her in the face, oozing anxiousness. He’d apologized right after, mentioning that he’d forgotten to tone it down, and that the amount he’d just exuded was the same as when he’d go into enemy territory for a mission. She’d nodded hesitantly, still in shock from the feeling of almost dying, of being crushed by someone else’s power, of being buried alive—

But she hadn’t regretted it.)

Now she stands facing the girl - the fact that she’d been trained now obvious to Sakura - and holds her head up high. Of course, she’s still trembling and a bystander would be able to tell that something is clearly wrong, but she’s not paralyzed and she can still fight. Mizuki looks at them both with a contemplative look, though eventually, his gaze settles on the other girl. There’s a glint in his eye when he stares at her, and Sakura can only wonder if she’s just dodged a bullet. One might assume it to be approval or shock at first, but Sakura (with Inner’s help, of course) sees it for what it really is. He’s appraising her, as if she were a product to be sold. Sakura’s stomach turns, but she ignores it, shaking her head. 

The spar starts and Sakura dashes to the left, trying to conserve her energy. The girl pounces, her hands almost touching the floor like a wolf and in her mind, Sakura now has no doubt that this girl is related to the Inuzuka in some manner. She doubts that the girl is an Inuzuka orphan, if only for the fact that if she’s always displayed such habits, then it would be no question that she was an Inuzuka, and they probably would have adopted her. But the class register reads ‘Konohano;’ of Konoha, and Sakura knows that no respectable clan would let one of their own take the  _ orphan _ name.

Perhaps she’s an Inuzuka ward? While that seems like the most plausible option at first, the theory quickly falls apart after going deeper into thought. Most clans don’t teach their wards their clan techniques, not only because if their ward decided to turn on them, they would be able to teach their clan techniques to someone else, but also because most clan techniques have a genetic factor in them that helps them use those jutsus, from the Naras having an imbalance in Yin chakra to the Akimichi’s irregularly large fat deposits. Sometimes, they are the reason why the clans can even use their techniques at all, though sometimes, they just enhance the jutsus. But the fluid way she’s moving suggests both that there’s  _ some _ kind of genetic relation, no matter how distant, and that she’s been formally trained.

So entrenched in her thoughts Sakura is, that she doesn’t notice Inner yell out a warning. By the time she notices, it’s too late to dodge the kick headed towards her temple and she braces for impact. She hits the ground with a thud, head pounding, but ignores the pain in favor of getting up as fast as possible. She rolls to her right as a punch lands where she had just been lying. Taking advantage of the girl’s momentary overextension, Sakura lands a kick to her side and while it lacks any technique, the muscle behind it pushes the girl a few feet away and she lands on her arm weirdly. It’s not broken by any means, but it does look like it’s sprained or otherwise hurt from the way the girl is clutching it close to her torso.

(Strangely, the girl shows no pain.)

The Inuzuka snarls at Sakura, the bloodlust having ramped up - she can still handle it, but the tolerance she built up to the previous amount the girl was releasing is momentarily shattered and Sakura stumbles because of it, caught off guard. That moment is enough for the other girl, who takes hold of Sakura’s left arm in an iron grip. Sakura can feel her bones creak a bit underneath the force and she barely notices Mizuki’s faint comment to the other girl not to break Sakura’s arm.

“Hitomi! Let go of your classmate.” 

_ “So that’s her name? Hitomi?”  _ Sakura thinks to herself, no longer in as much pain now that the grip on her arm has loosened a bit. Unluckily for Sakura, the girl nods once and  _ throws Sakura across the sparring circle _ , the pinkette suffering a rough landing just outside the circle, the chalk smearing behind her. 

Hitomi nods to Mizuki, then walks back to her spot in the crowd. The class gives her a wide berth, now properly intimidated by the girl. 

Due to Sakura’s injuries, she’s taken off the sparring roster for the rest of the day, getting to sit under the tree-cast shade while the rest of her classmates get beat up by the almost feral girl. Two others join her under the tree and one other is sent to the hospital nearby. Not life-threatening injuries, but the boy  _ did _ break a leg. She ignores Inner ranting in her head - she’s been complaining since Sakura ate dirt when landed - and glances back at the fights. The rest of them are fairly uninteresting, except for the spar between the Uchiha and Hitomi, where the Uchiha beats the other girl, but doesn’t get out of it unschated. There’ll be a mean bruise on her face for the next week or so.

She turns and sees Mizuki level a curious look at her, so she turns away quickly. If she never has to do this again, she’ll be happy. Get beat up, that is. She’d been so confident in her own abilities that she’d gotten overconfident and she’d paid for it. She tries to reassure herself that it’s fine, considering that now she won’t have to worry about blending in, but her pride stings from being beaten so quickly. She should get stronger—no.

She  _ has _ to get stronger, if only to be able to feel like she’s worthy of inheriting her clan. It’s been weighing on her mind lately. She’s the last female Haruno by blood, and after reading the exploits of the leaders before her, she feels like she’s lacking a bit. She’ll learn all their clan techniques and be the strongest kunoichi in the village! She’ll figure out why no more Harunos exist in the village, why nobody remembers the Haruno clan. She’ll learn the reason why her house seems to move around her, alive in one sense but dead in another. Why the voices chime in once in a while, giving her helpful hints when she’s training. 

“For your clan?” Inner asks.

“For  _ our  _ clan.” Sakura replies, smiling.

(ᕯ)

Mizuki notices the oddest things. The doctor had diagnosed it as external chakra sensitivity when he’d gone to visit, fresh out of the Academy, but he suspects that while it might have started out that way, it’s been moulded and shaped to be something more, by his master’s guiding hand, experiments be damned.

When he was a child, they called him a loser and a creep and as he grew older, it only got stronger, to the point of actively distracting him from his patrolling. He suspects that nobody really liked him even as a child before it got worse, but when the Kumo-nin got through  _ his _ section of the forest while  _ he _ was on duty, the Hyuga clan wasn’t very happy (read: absolutely furious that ‘a chunin could be so disastrously incompetent’) and demanded he be removed from the active chunin list. After his dismissal, he wallowed in despair, hoping for a miracle and a miracle did he receive. Thus, the sense that had cost him his job and duty helped him be born anew, under his master’s watchful eye. The odd prickling feeling he’d pushed down, and yet his master nurtured the sense, watering it and helping it bloom.

It only tends to appear when he’s either near an eminent danger or a potential ally, almost as if his chakra senses that there’s an issue afoot, whether a friend or a foe. So when it activates on his first day of teaching, he scans the room almost frantically looking for the person setting all his internal alarms off even as his face is calm and composed. None of the children look exceptional or dangerous, so he can’t tell right away, but once he finds out, he’ll be sure to challenge them, if only to check if they are a potential ally or an enemy to be swiftly eliminated. If it’s someone that’ll threaten his master’s plans, it will be disappointing but necessary to dispose of them. It’ll be fine, children disappear in the village all the time, so they’ll probably just chalk it up to Danzō being Danzō, and they certainly won’t suspect him first. As long as it’s not the Uchiha, he’ll emerge socially unscathed.

But if it’s an ally? Well, then if they survive the fight, he’ll bring them to his master and then he’ll be praised for his amazing work and how his work is essential to his master’s plans, a central cog in the machinations behind the curtains of Konoha.

He has his suspicions of who it might be, but he’s hoping that it’s not what he thinks it is. There are certain powers moving in Konoha’s dark shadows that even his master is wary of, and if his master is careful when dealing with them, Mizuki knows that he should stay as far away from them as possible. 

The girl he’s thinking of will probably be more of a nuisance than an ally, considering the meddling nature of her  _ boss _ . His master is relatively sure that her boss knows of a spy planted in the village, but he’s certain that Mizuki is in no danger, confident that he doesn’t know who the mole is yet. He’ll try his best to capture her anyways, his master could use a new kekkei genkai, even though he already has this specific one. But replacements are good too. Besides, she’s likely an orphan, which makes his job easier, unless she’s backed by who he thinks she is. Such bloodlust, finesse and lack of empathy to throwing a classmate  _ across the field  _ in a supposed orphan points to one thing, and one thing alone.

He’s not suicidal to the point of trying to kidnap a ROOT agent. A dead spy would be useless to his master, though Mizuki  _ has _ heard of a rumor of a kekkei genkai in Kumogakure that can bring people back to life for a brief moment. (They use it in their T&I.)

There were a few other children that seemed promising, like that pink haired girl (though he’s not sure whether that sense was just that most of the kids didn’t bother to fight) or the Uchiha, considering that his master has always wanted the coveted dojutsu. Regardless of that, there are many ways and many things that Mizuki can help his master with, whether it’s new specimens or keeping his master’s genin plant out of harm's way.

Orochimaru-sama will be  _ pleased _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello (got you there): did you enjoy? If you did, tell me about it in the comments! And if you didn’t, then complain about it in the comments as well! I appreciate constructive criticism, considering this is my first fic on this website!
> 
> This is your reminder to relax once in a while and leave a kudos! (Y’know, both actions that will make someone happy!)


	9. act two, chapter three: revival of years past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She glances up at the ceiling and then at the red door, marked with the clan symbol, as red as a rose, as crimson as her hair, as maroon as her blood was on the wooden floor, bleeding out of her as she stared at those eyes, those jaded, empty eyes, filled with hatred and regret and indifference all at once. She can’t help but wonder if it was fate after all, the powerless betraying the powerful.
> 
> Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin, and she is a fickle mistress indeed.
> 
> She takes in a shaky breath and the house breathes with her. She laughs deliriously and the place she used to call home quakes with what could have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: are you happy to see me? I assume you are because you’re reading my story...so welcome back! I hope you had a good week! Anyways: enjoy more world building except not really because there are big hints about what happened to the Harunos in this chapter, so pay attention.
> 
> Enjoy!

[☀]

Another week passes with not much of note happening in Sakura’s life. At school, they’ve been teaching shinobi history, which would be all fine and good if they hadn’t been teaching the same unit for the last week, half of it being things that Sakura already knew. They’re starting at the founding of Konoha, and surprisingly, she has clan records from that time, though most of it was from before her clan settled in the village. She does have a nice section of history around five years after the village has been officially formed from her slightly outdated clan records.

Sakura takes that to mean that her clan settled into the village not long after the founding - perhaps one of the first clans to do so. But since they weren’t a shinobi clan by trade, they were given a civilian compound and were classified as civilian until they started going into the shinobi forces. The kekkei genkai, from what she can tell, isn’t new in her family, and in fact spans all of her clan’s written history. The first record that she could find was of a former clan head writing about the potential uses of light to cook food. It’s interesting.

The way that the history abruptly cuts off is weird though, with ten years of history being heavily documented and filled with details and new discoveries, before it switches into a much barer style of writing, only mentioning the clan lands and the expenses. Oddly enough, where there was once a page or two solely about light-bending in every ten she flipped, after the change, not once did another one appear.

Huh.

Anyways, she’s already memorized the textbooks that she’s been given for the next two years - she had nothing to do, don’t judge her - and has since tried to stay awake in her home room classes. It probably doesn’t help that Mizuki only pays attention to the clan kids, plus Hitomi and Chikanari, ignoring everybody else.

( _“Oh right, they had names.”_ Inner mutters under her breath. _“I just called them the kinda-Inuzuka and the clan orphan, respectively.”_ )

Today is the first day that students are allowed to quit the Academy, the mandatory trial period now over. The names of the kids who’d thought that being a ninja was fun and games have left, and only the serious ones and the few forced to become shinobi - usually clan children, but occasionally the odd civilian with ambitious parents - remain.

The early results have already come out and the list is noticeably shorter than the attendance list at the beginning of the year, but Sakura isn’t surprised. Where there was once a list filled with civilians and orphans unsuited to become ninja, there is now a list perhaps half the length of before. Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Sakura is one of the very few civilian children left, most of them probably having been taken out of the Academy by their parents, who only put them into the Academy for the potential prestige of being related to a ninja.

(To nobody’s surprise, the ‘friends’ that Sakura had to talk to are all gone as well.)

“Looks like we’re one of five left.” Sakura says, pausing to double check the number of civilians still in the Academy. “There are three kids in 1-A and two in 1-B, including us.”

“Well, it’s not like it was a real surprise.” Inner scoffs. “Half the kids were complaining about it and threatening to quit on the first day. It’s just that now they actually can.”

“Still…now we stand out more.” Sakura thinks with a pout on her face, before her expression turns pensive. “Do you think that an awful civilian or a genius would stand out more in a ninja academy? Obviously the aim would be to seem as average as possible, but should we try to seem good or bad during physical tests?”

“Well, obviously it would be easier for us if we didn’t have to handicap ourselves all the time, but the better we seem, the more likely someone will investigate, considering most children would never try to make themselves seem worse than they actually are.” Inner snorts, before muttering under her breath. “It’s not like it really matters either way, considering it’s looking like there won’t be enough students left at the end of the year for us to properly blend in.”

Sakura shrugs as she walks away from the list of names, having memorized them all by now. She’s interested to see who’ll be in her new class - they’re rearranging the classes again because while there are still plenty of students - not enough to put them all into one class yet - most of them are in class 1-A, with only eleven names on the list of thirty remaining familiar to Sakura from the weeks of attendance. She assumes they’ll probably just move three or four children from the other class over to balance it out, and once enough people drop out, leaving only around twenty or so students, then the Academy might decide to merge them into one class.

Glancing around at her fellow classmates, she sees a few that she suspects will drop out in the coming days as the actual training ramps up, and she sighs, aware that she might have been one of them had it nor been for her extra training and Inner’s help. 

(In one universe, Sakura never has to worry about stuff like this because instead she waits for the winter term of the Academy, wanting to stay with her only friend Ino, and doesn’t even entertain the thought of quitting, too self-conscious to leave her. In one universe, she doesn’t care about the time lost by waiting half a year and joins the year we’re most acquainted with, of foxes and massacres and heirs and others that are the most familiar. In this one, she puts her desire first and joins before she’s meant to and the world _shifts_ around her.)

[☀]

“Are you sure it’s supposed to do this?” Sakura squints at the mirror again, combing through her hair with her fingers. Having dropped the henge she keeps up constantly, but only on her eyes, lest it drain too much chakra - _thank you ANBU-san!_ \- she’s met with what she ‘actually’ looks like. What once was a clear cut pink or black depending on the time is now a mix of shimmery copper or a metallic grey highlights, respectively. They don’t dominate her hair - most of her hair is still what it normally looks like - but they are noticeable enough that it occasionally sparkles in the sun when her hair swishes as she walks in bright sunlight. 

There are a few streaks in her hair, but most of them clump up as her two most front groups of hair - one on each side. They’re the ones that are the most noticeable, the rest not as obvious at first glance. When the other children have asked, she’s just told them that she dyed her hair - and it’s nice that her parents know about her...condition, because they cover for her when children and other parents ask at the end of the school day when Sakura’s being picked up.

“Well, I think so. That’s what it said in the book.” Inner replies. Honestly, she’s not quite sure if it’s natural either, considering the books are incredibly vague, probably only meant to supplement lessons from a clan tutor. There’s only a minor section on physical changes, mentioning that hair color, eye color and personality might change, though it doesn’t mention exactly how much. Thus, Inner has no idea whether a few highlights are normal, or whether Sakura’s whole head of hair is supposed to glimmer like a diamond in the sun, closer to the descriptions of the clan when they were first settling.

Sakura glares at the mirror, really meaning to scowl at Inner. “I know. I _read_ the book. And you know what? The book had nothing in it!” She smoothes out her expression, holding her eyelids wide open to see the few specks of gold in her otherwise emerald eyes. It’s like flecks of a gold leaf interspersed in a faded jade marble, never moving from their positions but entrancing nonetheless.To be honest, she’s not completely convinced that she doesn’t just have a weird undiscovered dojutsu of sorts, though when she’d asked ANBU-san, he’d checked her eyes and hadn’t seen any extra chakra pathways, so maybe it’s just her. 

(He had mentioned that they do look like dojutsu eyes, and since the village would want to learn if they actually were and Sakura very clearly did not want that to happen, what with the _hiding and all_ , ANBU-san had taught her how to henge just for that reason.)

Inner rolls her (metaphorical) eyes. “I think the book wasn’t actually meant to explain the physical transformations, considering half the book is parenting advice. The whole change probably wasn’t written down, but passed on from parent to child. After all, it _technically_ is a clan secret, considering that to their knowledge, it only affects people of the Haruno clan and seems to be inextricably linked with being able to bend light. She glances back at the book sitting on their desk to the right. It’s why the one family who couldn’t bend light in the clan were described to have never had the bright hair normally associated with her clan.

The book, aptly titled _Raising a Child (and not Burning the House Down)_ \- Inner got a real laugh out of that one - isn’t completely useless though. The book is mostly about how to fireproof (or more really, lightproof) your house, but since Sakura hasn’t told her parents about the whole lightbending thing - they just think her physical changes are from Inner - she’s only been able to fix her room, which means no practicing in the rest of the house, even when her parents aren’t home.

Not that she was going to anyway, considering she has her training ground for that, but I guess you never know, right?

There’s also a section about potential personality changes she might experience, from being more upbeat to a compulsive need to bask in the sun for hours at a time, though Sakura hasn’t experienced most of them, and the ones that she has are certainly not to the degree that the book mentions might happen. Sure, she likes being out in the sun and she tries her best not to be rude to people’s faces, but not to the point of smiling at everybody - her scowls, or more accurately, Inner’s scowls, still very much present on her face. She chalks it up to Inner balancing the changes out with her negativity and scathing remarks. (She promptly ignores Inner sputtering as she tries to retort the statement.)

Sakura picks the book up and sets it aside, really meaning to focus on the one below it. It’s the taijutsu book from the clan library she’d picked up a week or so ago and her goal is to get the basics down before they start taijutsu practice in her second year at the Academy. If she’s going to be learning Konoha-standard in class, she wants to have learned her own clan’s techniques first, if only because she doesn’t want the first taijutsu technique she learns to be predictable, considering everybody knows Konoha-standard. She’d relayed her doubts to ANBU-san and he’d confirmed it. If she were to learn Konoha-standard before her own clan’s techniques - Sunbeam Strike is apparently not the name of her clan’s taijutsu, but a beginner’s branch of it - then if she were in a fight, her muscle memory would cause her to switch into Konoha-standard instead, unless she put in twice as much effort into ‘relearning’ taijutsu. He’d added that said issue was the reason why clans taught their children the clan taijutsu style before they headed to the Academy.

So her first order of business is to learn taijutsu - fortunately for her, she has a beginner’s guide to start with, and presumably a clan library that _has_ to contain more about it; it wouldn’t make sense for there to only be one book about it in the entire clan. Unfortunately for her, the book is mostly pictures and diagrams, which don’t help her at all. This would have been a positive, if she had someone to explain the katas and poses to her, with tips on how to stay balanced - apparently the Harunos really like a fluid fighting style, with the light changing hands and flowing with the person’s movement, almost alive in a sense. But as she stares at the drawings, trying to hold a pose in the right way with no real guidance, she curses the lack of instructions on the paper.

(Call her _naive_ or _selfish_ , but while she knows ANBU-san would help her with the poses if she just asked, she wants to keep the style and poses a clan secret, for as long as she possibly can. If that means stubbornly refusing to let anybody see them, even if it is just to teach her, then so be it.)

(Is this how clans feel when they have to guard their clan secrets? If so, Sakura _completely_ understands now.)

As with most of the things she has to learn from the Haruno library, she assumes the vagueness and lack of information is due to a mixture of clan paranoia that someone would steal a book and the fact that she would probably have a clan teacher if the Harunos were still active today, and thus, would be able to get advice from them instead.

Tying her hair up in a ponytail, Sakura heads to the clearing her dad owns, which she uses as a training field. It’s deserted and on the outskirts of the village, plus, it’s not too far away from her house. It’s actually quite strange that such a big clearing hasn’t been claimed as a training ground by the village yet, but Sakura isn’t complaining, considering she needs that clearing if she doesn’t want to have to be forced to train in her house. 

She sighs as she puts the book down next to a rock - the one ANBU-san likes to sit on when he interrupts her training sessions - and walks to the middle of the clearing. She’d already memorized the entire book - Inner made her do it - but she’d brought it just in case she wanted to make sure she was doing it right.

The field is about as odd as her house itself, both the physical aspects that everybody notices and the not-so physical ones, the ones that, to her knowledge, only she can see. For a ‘civilian’ family, her house is _huge_ in comparison to the other ones ‘nearby,’ which are maybe half the size of her own. She chalks it up to just people believing that their merchant business is much more successful than it actually is.

It also happens to be surrounded by a ring of empty land, with a few remnants of a neighborhood remaining, like how she’ll occasionally find a brick or two buried in the dirt beneath her.

(Almost as if there was once something here?)

Her house is also on the outskirts of the civilian district altogether, almost bordering the shinobi clan lands. Sakura muses that the reason this issue is mostly ignored is because of the few other civilian households - and she means _few_ , like four other houses - that also border the clans, but they all have some ties to ninja, whether it’s selling weapons, like Tenten’s family, or shinobi clothing. But strangely, nobody questions the pink haired civilian and his family living practically in arms width of the shinobi.

(The sun passes over her head as she does the drills the book mentions.)

And that’s not even getting into the fact that the land her dad inherited from their ancestors is literally bigger than some of the clan lands, even if there’s only one house compared to the many on the other side of the civilian/shinobi border. 

Tripping over her feet again as she switches from second form to third form, Sakura stands up, checking to make sure she hasn’t been severely injured - falling that many times consecutively will do that to you, trust her. Poking a particularly nasty bruise, she sweeps the dust off her knees, and looks around the field, small indents in the dirt and scorched trees from previous practices. 

By now, the sun has started to set, and Sakura will have to go home, lest she get lost in the dark. Well, really, it’s Inner that will get lost, considering despite her pseudo-night vision, it’s so close to the new moon that there’ll be no light for her to work with. Actually, the only way it could be worse would be if she got lost tomorrow, considering while Inner might have night vision, Sakura _definitely_ does not and navigating by herself at night on a new moon because Inner’s decided to take a long nap isn’t particularly high on her list of things she wants to do.

She walks back to her house - it’s not far, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all that close either - and stretches her arms as she does, before putting them both behind her head. Inner mumbles something about tomorrow, but Sakura can’t quite decipher it and shrugs it off. She glances back at the field behind her, now almost fading into the distance, and yawns, tired from hours of training. 

_“We still have tomorrow to train.”_ She thinks. _“Besides, the library always gives new books on new moons!”_

 _“Are you sure about that?”_ Inner hums, lazily. _“Don’t jinx it.”_

 _“Well, I hope so at least.”_ Sakura says, opening the front door of their house and walking inside. 

(❂)

_The sun sets behind her and the night begins anew. There’s a sliver of a moon hanging in the sky, rousing absolutely everyone and nobody living in the house at the same time. The bookshelves rattle, the windows creak open, the wind whistling faint chiming melodies through the house. The moonlight shines into the library through the skylight on the ceiling, and as it illuminates the room with a soft pale white glow, the future slots into place._

_A long sleeping pair of eyes opens. It is not the first time that something like this has happened, nor will it be the last, for she (it?) is tied to the place of her birth and her death, so it seems only fitting that she opens her eyes after she closed them for what she believed as the last time, and that she wakes up where she died._

_It’s the first time she’s been able to remember what’s happened since, for her soul has been drifting for years, no, decades, tethered to her refuge-turned-grave. She hears the whispers of the past that was her future, murmuring about her, and turns around to see the wisps that were once people she knew, human-like in appearance, but pale and transparent. It’s a strange contrast with her own self, hands still clear, but much more solid and colored, peachy skin as healthy as it once was._

_There are four or so in the room with her, and if she squints out of the window, she can see tens, maybe even hundreds of them milling around._

_The three children (ages from around eleven to seventeen) that look at her almost disbelieving seem familiar to her, so familiar, but she can’t remember and she stares blankly as the kids in front of her. Their faces wilt under her gaze, perhaps sensing her own hesitation and their own unreciprocated recognition. She turns away from them, though her heart aches as she does._

_She glances up at the ceiling and then at the red door, marked with the clan symbol, as red as a rose, as crimson as her hair, as maroon as her blood was on the wooden floor as she stared at those eyes, those mournful, yet empty eyes, filled with hatred and regret and indifference all at once. She can’t help but wonder if it was fate after all, the powerless betraying the powerful._

_Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin, and she is a fickle mistress indeed._

_She takes in a shaky breath and the house breathes with her. She laughs deliriously and the place she used to call home quakes with what could have been._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! Welcome back! Did you find it? Y’know, the whole Haruno clan thing? Hm? Who’s the person waking up? Why would they be walking up now? Who are the children? What does this have to do with the voices Sakura heard a few chapters ago? How does this relate to Inner? What’s the whole symbolism with the sun and moon and does it mean something more?
> 
> (Hint: of course it does.)
> 
> You probably have a million questions and I will give you...exactly none of the answers. At least not yet. (>:D)
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, even if you were annoyed by this week’s chapter, which was essentially a set-up chapter for future events. Leave a kudos if you enjoyed and talk to me in the comments! A comment a day keeps the anxiety away~ (But seriously, thanks for reading!)


	10. act two, chapter four: clear moons and clear suns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura speaks up, startling the woman and causing her to seemingly trip over nothing, ending up sprawled on the floor. “How do you know how to do that?”
> 
> The woman looks towards her. “I just do.”
> 
> Sakura has to hold in a sigh. Why does this woman answer so cryptically? It rubs her the wrong way, but Sakura suppresses her pride. “Would you teach me how?”
> 
> The woman smiles softly. “I can try?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: The last two weeks have been really busy for me, so I’m sorry for not updating! I’m thinking of updating maybe every other Thursday now, but that’s not set in stone. I will say that I’ll update at least once a month (I can do that at least) but my schedule’s a bit of a mess right now.
> 
> (Sorry.)
> 
> Anyways, enjoy this chapter: clearing some stuff up and answering questions with more questions.

{☾}

Inner hasn’t been doing so well these few days, which isn’t that surprising when you really think about it. Considering it’s the day (before the night) of the new moon, she’s more lethargic than usual, plus she won’t be able to help Sakura practice today. The energy drain has gotten worse over time, making Inner more tired, to the point that she tires before dusk, starting at noon. Alas, it only happens in the day, so she’s still perfectly fine during the night, except on the day before and after the new moon. She expands her ‘circle of sight’ as far as she can at the moment, covering around maybe half the house, stretching completely taut like a rubber band. Alas, she runs out of energy to sustain it - quicker than usual because of...the _day_ \- and it bounces back to her, almost giving her whiplash from the sensory overload.

Which is also another side-effect of her abilities that she hasn’t mentioned to Sakura. She’s gotten better at concealing thoughts from the pinkette, having practiced it while Sakura was focused on both learning how to communicate without speaking out loud - it got her quite a few weird looks as a kid, but it’s better now - and while Sakura first started to train with the ANBU. (She wasn’t needed for the first few months or so, and she had a lot of free time, considering all Sakura did back then were multiple strength drills and endurance training.)

She doesn’t see a reason why she needs to tell Sakura about both her decreasing energy or the occasional migraines, it’d just worry her about something that she wouldn’t be able to change - even Inner doesn’t know why it’s happening - and she’d be distracted from more important things, like _not_ being caught in possession of a foreign (or rather, _unknown_ ) kekkei genkai and being turned into a unwilling test subject. She’s aware that Konoha has regressed in technology and scientific discovery since Orochimaru betrayed the Leaf and left with the majority of his research over the years, but she’s not stupid enough to think that there aren’t still shady people in the Konoha underground researching clan techniques and kekkei genkai, whether endorsed by the Hokage or not.

She values her freedom almost as much as she values Sakura’s.

She doesn’t particularly like thinking about how she’s not safe in her own village, that one misstep might lead to her and Sakura having to flee if she’s not useful enough to her village or be chained to the place forever if she is. Inner sighs, aware that most children would probably be much more loyal to the village than they are at this age, but even those with kekkei genkai are all in clans, protected by numbers and by law. Sakura has neither, only a dead clan and a civilian status to her name.

There’s a reason why new clans don’t tend to sprout out of nowhere in villages these days. If they’re shinobi born, they’re taken to special classes to train their kekkei genkai, which is bad, but not nearly as bad as if they’re civilian in nature. Civilian children, without the toughness of shinobi kids, tend to be swallowed up by the system, never to be seen again after they disappear. Sakura’s strong enough - of that, Inner’s sure - but she’s not up to testing it.

She knows of the ANBU hiding in the shadows and the few that seem twitchier than normal, even as they try to hide it from civilians. They’re actually doing a pretty decent job at it, making themselves invisible to any people who can’t sense chakra, and even most that can. Inner is just a special case, considering while they can hide their physical bodies, they can’t hide the anger and the boredom and the— _fear fear fear, run away, enemy nearby, attack, always alert!—_ from her.

(Sakura wakes up to Inner complaining about Konoha again, the sun shining in her eyes, streaming through the curtains in slivers. It’s a frequent occurrence and while Sakura would normally agree, it’s too early for this and so she tries to go back to sleep. She rolls over, covering her ears with her pillow, as if that does anything, considering Inner is inside her _head_.)

Inner sighs, calming down, resolving to take it day by day. It won’t do her or Sakura any good to panic. She rolls her eyes at Sakura still pretending to be asleep, even though both of them are aware that she’s wide awake by now. Inner pauses, pondering what will happen today.

Surely nothing bad will happen. She has a pretty good feeling about today. She just knows something interesting is coming. 

Too bad she’ll be sleeping. Inner scoffs in disappointment, before mentally shoving Sakura, trying to ‘wake’ her up. “You’ll be late for school!” She says.

Sakura only whines and lies face down on her bed, not getting up. “Let me sleep.” She says, mumbling into her pillow.

(Inner shrieks in her ear and Sakura falls out of bed, squeaking in shock.)

[☀]

_Another day of school, another day wasted,_ Sakura thinks to herself, bored out of her mind. Swinging her feet underneath the desk, she tries to make herself pay attention in class and _not_ stare out of the window aimlessly for the rest of the day. Mizuki’s droning on and on about the Will of Fire and the different classes of ninja in Konoha, which _might_ have interested her in one universe, Sakura supposes. But in this one, she finds the entire lesson quite tedious, if only because Inner keeps laughing and/or scoffing when Mizuki keeps referring to dying for your village as a ‘noble sacrifice.’

 _“I mean, ignoring the fact that you’re advocating for children to die for their home - which we really shouldn’t, but whatever, it’s a ninja village, I get it - you’re also instilling the thought into these people’s minds that dying might be the best way out of a sticky situation. That’s lost manpower that this village sorely needs, what with the huge percentage of ninja who are either killed or go missing in action.”_ Inner rants, huffing in disbelief when Mizuki mentions the Genin Corps as a noble group of ninja helping the village. 

_“All they do is paint houses and mow lawns.”_ Inner continues, rolling her eyes. _“They’re just glorified servants who can also half-teleport sometimes. Though, I suppose we can’t blame them.”_ At this, she becomes more pensive. _“They’ve been trained in the basics but just didn’t show enough potential for them to be given a jounin-sensei, so of course they won’t be as good as the kids who did get one. It’s not really their fault, is it?”_

Sakura blinks, attention evenly split between Mizuki and Inner, taking care to lightly nod when Mizuki is asking whether everyone’s understood what he’s saying, as to not draw suspicion. She has a sinking feeling that Mizuki isn’t exactly what he seems to be, from Inner’s ominous feelings whenever he walks too close, to his eyes that stay on both the Uchiha and the sorta-Inuzuka for a second too long, as if appraising them. She replies airily, distracted by her own train of thought. _“Sure, Inner. Whatever you say.”_

Either Inner doesn’t notice Sakura’s placating tone or she chooses to ignore it, because she just goes on and on. “Well, unless they’re only there because they got lazy in class. Then they deserve it.”

Sakura slowly tunes Mizuki out to listen to Inner, if only because at least Inner’s nonsensical rambling is decently entertaining, whereas Mizuki just sounds like he’s been concussed and is reading a eulogy written by a senile old man at a funeral.

Wait…

Anyways, there’s not much to do today, or most days, for that matter. Wake up, eat, go to school, sit through a pointless lesson, eat lunch, learn nothing most days, go home, practice, eat, go to sleep, repeat. The pinkette sighs, the sound quiet, only barely audible and uses her finger to draw circles on the table in a lackadaisical manner, idly wondering whether this will be her routine for the next few years, or whether Year Two to Four will be more interesting. Though, even then, they only end up learning three jutsu in four years, and half the class still can’t perform them by the end of their Academy days. Actually, that might be the reason why they only teach three jutsu...half the kids can’t even do those ones.

Huh.

Maybe it isn’t the teacher’s fault after all. Maybe some of these kids just really are hopeless. She shrugs minutely, knowing that she could very well have also been one of those people, if not for the fact that she’s been practicing chakra control for the past few years, from sticking a leaf to her forehead to the light orb. (It also doesn’t really _hurt_ that ANBU-san likes to push her into rivers on a whim if she doesn’t finish her exercises on time as an incentive to work quicker, so she’d devoted a few weeks to learning how to water walk. His face when she fell onto the water and _didn’t fall through_ was amazing. _So worth_ the soaked clothes and hours spent on it.)

As for taijutsu, well, of course she’s devoted time to it, focusing on it even more after she got absolutely curb-stomped by the Inuzuka-except-not-really. But there’s only so far she can go alone. She’s definitely smarter and more mature than almost all the children, yes, even the clan kids, but there’s a limit on how much she can learn alone. If she keeps this up, she could very well end up learning a stance incorrectly and gaining muscle memory that will ultimately be useless and might even be detrimental to her learning, should she have to train _over_ her wrong stance.

She’s also hesitant to ask anybody else, not only because she doesn’t want to share clan secrets, her clan’s secrets, but also because they’d dismiss her, saying that a civilian, even one descended from a former clan, wouldn’t need to learn such techniques, considering they’d be much better off in the hands of the village, so that everybody can learn them together, right? Well, either that, or they’d think she was a prodigy, which, y’know, isn’t _technically wrong_ \- Inner’s a bigger help than most people realize, even if Sakura complains about her at least once a day - but she doesn’t _want_ to be known as a prodigy. Not for the fame, not for the money, but for the practicality of remaining unknown.

Prodigies don’t last long in general. In war, they’re used as ‘invincible’ troops, thrown into situations that are near impossible to deal with, the reason being that a genius would have the best chance of succeeding - even if that success rate goes from one percent to five percent. And when they live, it’s just proof that they can handle these types of situations, right? So they’re sent on more suicidal missions. And then, when the day finally comes that they can’t win and then they get captured or die, then the village either puts them up as a martyr or uses their mistake as proof that they weren’t actually a prodigy, were they? Because a prodigy would never screw up something this easy, not when they’d gone and completed tens of missions harder than this one before. And so a prodigy might defect, if only to get rid of the expectations set upon them, and they would leave their village behind. But since they were a prodigy, the village would know what their preferred techniques would be, from all the missions they’ve been on, and so the ANBU sent after them are specifically tailored to fight against them. And geniuses are never underestimated.

In peace, they are used as figureheads, inspiring terror and fear into other villages, being given missions that, while aren’t quite suicidal like missions in war, are certainly no walk in the park either. Or they are kept hidden, closed in the village if the village has no need for them or if they are reaching the precipice of war. After all, any village would want a secret weapon, right? Or if it’s a powerful kekkei genkai that makes them strong, they might be pressured into having kids, so that the village has more mini geniuses to use as pawns. Sakura understands that all these things are vital for a village to thrive, for Konoha to keep up with Kiri killing their classes to find the best, or Kumo stealing women and children with kekkei genkais, and so she doesn’t blame either the Hokage or the Founders of Konoha for it.

She just wishes it didn’t have to happen. 

(☀|>>☀<<)

It’s dark in the library, the only source of light in the room gone. Where faint white light might have illuminated the table in the middle of the room, now is only darkness, for tonight at least. The curtains block the other windows and the skylight is dark, the absence of the moon made profoundly clear, and yet, Sakura slips in, closing the creaking door behind her with a quiet thud. There’s an eerie silence around her, almost as if she’d expected to hear cheers and laughter in the place of the absence of noise left behind. She’s brought a lantern with her, the one she always uses when she goes to the library on days like this one, if only to help her read when the moon is gone. It flickers in the dark, the light it emits not enough to illuminate the room, just barely enough for her to see the ground ahead of her. There’s two books under her arm, clutched in her hand, one cover as burgundy as dark wine. It’s a simple thing, made of bound leather like the rest of the books in the library, with a silk ribbon hanging from inside the spine of the book, flicking and twisting as Sakura walks to the table. 

She places the lantern down on the table and puts the red book down on the surface as well, front cover facing down. There is another book, of course. It’s one even simpler than the mahogany book, the cover a worn yellowing paperback, unlike the rest of the books in the library, the rest of which are leather and not nearly as flimsy. She’s already read the book, of course - she had to, considering it’s her taijutsu ‘textbook,’ of sorts - but she carries it with her almost everywhere, if only to make sure she doesn’t lose it. The Haruno symbol shines back at her, the black and white contrasting heavily with the rose red ring she’s come to know as the pride of her clan.

She slides the taijutsu book on the table and it stops in front of the chair to her right. It sits there for a few seconds, Sakura just staring at it, until she turns away. The pinkette picks up the crimson brown book in front of her, and she reads. The absence of Inner makes it so she has to actually pay attention if she wants to memorize or even really understand the book, but contrary to what one might believe, she finds that she rather enjoys it. Having to actually pay attention to what she’s reading, as opposed to Inner just memorizing it and Sakura just flipping through pages in boredom. Plus, as shown by nights like this one, Inner won’t be with her all the time, and so, she’s got to learn how to function without Inner sometime or another.

There’s a gust that runs through the room and the rustling of pages and Sakura looks up at the book. It’s half open, the pages flying up for a moment from the wind, before closing. 

She flips the page.

The book she’s reading at the moment is about potential theories about how the sun came to be; it’s quite interesting. She’ll admit that it’s an incredibly fascinating topic - the theories range from a new jutsu attempt gone wrong to a self-sustaining source of chakra that gives life and chakra to the people on Earth - but she’s not entirely sure why her clan focused on the sun, the sky and the stars so much. Considering their powers, she understands that they obviously would have wanted to understand, but there’s nothing else in the library. All the book’s she’s read are of the sky and constellations, of sunlight and shadows and sundials and stars. There’s nothing in the tens or even hundreds of books that she’s read from the library that focuses on other topics, and the ones that mention it merely relate it back to astronomy and the sun.

There’s not even anything on other chakra techniques not related to light bending, which seems rather odd for a former shinobi clan. Alas, Sakura just assumes that the clan did not teach such things, believing that an aspiring shinobi ought to learn non-clan techniques at the Academy. Thus, they would not keep any records or books on a topic that they would not be teaching. It kind of rubs her the wrong way, but she’s not sure how to feel about it.

(There is one book sitting on the table in her room that she knows talks about more, the cover the color of sunsets and sunrises, but it remains firmly closed, locking Sakura out of it. She resolves to ignore it.)

The wind returns, rustling shimmering metallic pink locks and startling emerald green and brilliant gold eyes. She glances up again, eyes drawn to the book, ribbon flickering wildly in the wind before abruptly going still. Sakura turns to the door, then the windows, and then up, to the skylight. All are closed, firmly shut and airtight, with no way for a wind to enter.

She looks back to her book, skimming through the current page, which explains the theory of the moon being a sliver of the sun, stolen by a clan out of jealousy. She turns the page, the lantern's light flickering over the paper. She goes back to the first page of the book, just to check again, and again finds no author. It’s a strange thing, considering she’s used to the public library’s books having the author written on the cover in huge writing. Actually, from what she’s been told from ANBU-san, most of the scrolls from the ninja library for genin and up don’t have authors either. Nothing too important or pertinent, but it’s just an intriguing thing to think about - that the clan’s books have this in common with the ninja materials.

The gust returns, and with a vengeance. It surprises her, and Sakura drops the book she’s been reading. Picking the book up from off the ground, she grumbles about losing the page she’d been on. Standing back up, she slides back into her chair and comes face to face with a pair of slightly translucent bright gold eyes.

“Hello.” The person says. They’re a little clear entirely, from head to toe. Her golden eyes are set in her face, above a nose much like Sakura’s one and below crests of shimmering unevenly colored rose gold hair, more gold in some places, more pink in others. There’s a golden star earring in her left ear and a golden sun in her right one and Sakura knows, a small part of her knows that this person is someone she’s supposed to know. They seem vaguely familiar, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. 

“Hello?” She says, feeling oddly calm about a person she sort of recognizes randomly appearing in her library. She doesn’t feel any danger coming from the being in front of her, as if some part of her subconscious has relaxed in the person’s presence. She’s not quite sure whether it’s something to do with the person in front of her, or whether Inner being quiet has mellowed her out. “Who are you?” Sakura asks, slowly raising a hand, as if trying to see whether her hand will go through the other woman’s body.

It does.

The woman giggles, as if being tickled. “Stop that!” She says and Sakura pulls her hand back. She turns towards Sakura, large golden eyes shimmering in the dim light, just close enough to the lantern for Sakura to see. 

“Who are you?” Sakura repeats, still waiting for an answer. The woman just stares at Sakura for a few seconds and Sakura stares back, as if daring the woman to look away. She glances towards Sakura’s hair and grabs a lock of hair, comparing it to her own, slightly translucent as it is.

“I don’t know.” She murmurs. 

Sakura blinks in confusion. “What?”

“I don’t know.” The woman repeats again.

“Alright then.” Sakura says, going back to reading her book. Sure, it’s weird, but she’s seen much weirder. This doesn’t even make the top five weirdest things she’s seen - though it might be the sixth. A few minutes pass like this, in silence and with Sakura ignoring the presence she can feel near her. There’s a crash and a thump and Sakura turns to the woman, who’s on the ground, with the taijutsu book on the floor with her, opened to one of the forms that Sakura could never get down. The pinkette watches as the woman picks herself up and without even glancing back at the book, she executes the pose identically to the picture in the book.

Sakura speaks up, startling the woman and causing her to seemingly trip over nothing, ending up sprawled on the floor. “How do you know how to do that?”

The woman looks towards her. “I just do.”

Sakura has to hold in a sigh. Why does this woman answer so cryptically? It rubs her the wrong way, but Sakura suppresses her pride. “Would you teach me how?”

The woman smiles softly. “I can try?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello: did you enjoy the chapter? It was..a tad rushed because I didn’t have a lot of time and I didn’t want to not update for a third week in a row (so it’s not edited at all...not like the rest of the chapters WERE edited...)
> 
> I’ll see you...sometime soon. Maybe next Thursday, maybe in a month, who knows? (><)
> 
> Anyways: if you enjoyed, leave a kudos! Talk to me in the comments as well if you want to - a comment a day keeps the author writing (and not going to start a KHR fanfic...whoops.)


	11. act two, chapter five: time slipping past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She catches her breath, coughing for a moment before settling down. Neither of her kids mention how the poison in her chest is seeping outwards, wrapping its disgusting black tentacles around her waist and starting to climb her arms, nearing her neck, like an impending noose. She coughs once more. “Just hope that the moon understands the fleeting nature of a comet that burns bright and spreads sparks in the sky like a paint swatch.”
> 
> She sighs again, feeling the weight of her childrens’ eyes on the back of her neck. “Hope for that at least.” She murmurs and the house falls quiet with a hush, as if contemplating the stars and the sky and the sun and the moon and the constellations with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi: welcome back to Sun in her Step/Moon in her mind! I’m your host for today (and...every day—), Aevi! Anyways, today, you’ll be seeing a mountain of foreshadowing and a lot of potential confusion for the time being—it’ll make sense eventually, I swear.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

(☀|>>☀<<)

“Left! Right! One, two, one, two!” The woman says, cheering Sakura on by the sidelines. “Good, good. Just remember to lift your left leg up more and keep it straight so you have more force behind it.” Sakura finishes the set, panting, hands on her knees. They’ve been doing reverse-roundhouse kicks, which seem to be a favorite in the book; they show up once every few pages. She’s about to try again, starting her first kick, when she comes to a startling realization. Pausing in the middle of her kick’s arc, she turns towards the half-clear figure nearby, sitting on the rocks to her right.

“I just realized—!” Sakura says, shocked at her own oversight.

The woman tilts her head in confusion, eyes swimming with interest all the while. “Hm?”

Sakura walks towards the rocks, brushing her hair back when walking. “You still don’t have a—wait.” She pauses, both in speech and in movement. “Do you still not remember your name?” When the woman nods, Sakura hums, slowly nodding her head, deep in thought.

 _‘So? Now what?’_ Inner asks Sakura through their shared link. 

Sakura shakes her head, the movement so small that only Inner understands. _‘Now we do what I did to you around seven years ago.’_ She smiles, both at the woman and Inner and both of them smile back. ‘ _She needs a name, after all_.’

“No, it’s just that I’ve been referring to you in my mind as ‘the woman,’ so I want to ask you if you have a name in mind so I have something formal to call you.” Sakura answers, shrugging her shoulders as if to say ‘what can you do?’

The woman hums, placing a translucent finger on her lips. “Well, I don’t really mind either way. Any name will be fine.”

Sakura nods, turning back to the drills, focusing on her stance but never forgetting the woman in her peripheral view. She needs to find a name that fits soon. It’s getting rather exhausting to have to keep referring to the woman as, well, ‘the woman.’

(☀|>>☀<<)

She’s eating lunch when the woman springs it on her. Well, really, she springs two things on her. One’s shocking, sure. But the other is absolutely insane - and yet, somehow explains so much about the house around her.

“I’m kinda like your big sister, huh.” She says, floating off of the ground. Her feet hover a little above the wooden floor, and the space only increases as she tries to do a loop-de-loop in midair, spinning without gravity to weigh her down.

Sakura almost does a double take, half choking on the mouthful of rice she’s eating. “Where did this come from?” She says, coughing.

The woman blinks, a happy smile on her face as always. “Well, I teach you stuff, I hang out without and we both have the same shade of pink hair! Sure, we have different eyes, but your eyes are turning golden as well, so it’s all good.” She spins in a circle, her transparent dress spinning around before draping back around her ankles. It’s a pale red, color faded from the transparency of it all. Sakura can tell that the dress and the faint orange line around the hem of the bottom are much more vibrant than how they seem. The woman raises a lock of her hair to Sakura’s. “Look! They both shimmer and glisten just the same. Just cause my hair is lighter from my—circumstances, it doesn’t mean that it’s different.”

Sakura begrudgingly agrees that they’re probably related, from the fact that she appeared in the clan library, to how she knows how to fight in their traditional clan style. But—! “Why big sister?” She asks instead. She kind of already has one of those? She hadn’t mentioned Inner to the woman yet, so it’s going to be hard to explain. She knows about the transformations, considering she lives with Sakura, but she just thinks that it’s a physical transformation. Inner does a pretty good job impersonating her, having learned all of Sakura’s habits and tics from coexisting together for their entire lives.

(Well, Inner’s more of a twin of sorts, but she’s more mature than Sakura, always advising her and sensing bad intentions. Well, Sakura says that Inner’s more mature, but perhaps she’s just more jaded, having seen the worst of people firsthand, whereas Sakura only gets what Inner tells her.)

“Well, you don’t have one, do you?” There’s a curious glint in her eye. “Or do you?”

Sakura blinks, face emotionless for a moment. “I—probably? It’s complicated.”

“Oh, have the other spirits talked to you already? Phooey, I wanted to be the first one.” Hold on, hold on, hold on. _More_ spirits? “So who was it? Who talked to you first? The girl with the wavy yellow hair or was it the boy with the eyepatch? Ooh, ooh, maybe it was the teenager with the sword? She seems so cool, and—“ She pauses to hold one of her eyelids open. “—she had glimmering silver eyes! I’ve never seen those before.”

“What?” Sakura blurts out, still trying to wrap her head around the concept of ghosts in her house.

“Hm, some of the elders are real grumps and they never smile, but not even the little kids like talking. I don’t get it. None of them reply when I ask them questions.” She huffs in annoyance. “It’s really quite rude, don’t you think? Not responding when someone asks you something. What did _I_ do to them?”

Sakura shakes her head violently, cutting the woman off. “Wait, wait, wait. Repeat what you just said?”

“None of them reply when I ask them questions?” She repeats.

Sakura rolls her eyes, exasperated. “No, not that. Further back. You said something about there being ghosts in my house?”

The woman nods. “Mhm.”

“And how many are there exactly?” The girl says, glaring at the woman. “And why didn’t I know about this?”

“I thought you knew already!”

“How many are there.” Sakura repeats herself, the question no longer sounding like a request.

“Um...around three hundred or so? Some of them are barely here anymore because they’re so faded, so it’s hard to count.”

Sakura stares at her bowl, lamenting her new life. “Why.” She facepalms. “You know what? Nevermind. I’ll just accept it, since I thought that the house was haunted, so this just confirms it.” She picks up her chopsticks and shoves rice into her mouth. “It’s fine. Everything’s _fine_.”  
  


(☀|>>☀<<)

The first time she sees the woman lightbend is at night. It’s a new moon again, considering it’s Sakura that’s awake at night and not Inner, who’s started devoting more of her energy to expanding her sensing range. She eagerly tells Sakura about each and every new discovery she makes.

(Last week she figured out that she can track one person specifically, tagging them if Sakura makes skin contact with them, even for a second. It’s not efficient, considering that Inner can’t do anything else while tracking someone, considering it takes up almost all of her energy.)

They’re heading to the library, Sakura wanting a new book, Inner asleep in the deep recesses of her mind, and the woman floats behind her, following her through the maze of corridors she has long since conquered. She sees the woman’s eyes dart around in the dark, her golden eyes positively glowing in the night, the only source of light in the dark hallway. Sakura has no need for a lantern or a light, considering her feet know where the library is from years of familiar travel.

But the woman is scared, as if the lack of light will swallow her whole, and Sakura is about to ask her if she needs some light - she can conjure an faint orb of light if need be, even if it will be dim - but the woman cups her hands and breathes out into the darkness. And a small flicker of light blinks into existence, flashing and playful as if alive. It hops around, flickering around her and the woman, and when it lands on Sakura’s outstretched hand, it feels warm, more comforting as anything has ever felt. She looks closer at the little flicker and upon closer inspection, it seems to be a small grasshopper, concentrated light bright as bright can be.

It perches onto the woman’s head, chirping happily and Sakura can only stare at it in amazement. A part of her mind whispers about how the sun had brought life to the grass and the Earth, and so that it only makes sense that life itself would stem from the sun. It titters about how if the sun helped life bloom in places where it could not take root, then it would only make sense that pure sun would create life where life previously never did exist.

Her eyes glimmer with unhidden awe. How can a ghost use chakra and use jutsus? She’s part of the family line, right? Does that mean that it’s hereditary? Can _she_ do that one day? “I think I have a name for you now. You get to pick if you want to accept it, okay?” Sakura asks.

The woman nods. “What is it?”

Sakura opens her mouth, making sure to brush her normally pink hair-turned black. “I think it would suit you. How about—“

(☀|>>☀<<)

She’s woken up by a warm glow in front of her eyelids, and she doesn’t open her eyes, already knowing what the light is. “What are you doing?”

The pink-haired woman smiles, translucent cheeks stretching widely. She flicks her head quickly, putting out the little ball of light in her hand. “I’m waking you up! I need to live up to my new name. I suppose you could say I’ve developed a _sunny_ disposition.”

Sakura rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You’re too happy about this. It’s really just a name.” She gets out of bed, watching her friend—is she a friend or family?—float out of her way. She looks in the mirror to change and sees the lack of reflection cast by the woman who she knows is behind her. She speaks up in the room, not turning around. “And stop with the sun puns.” She snorts, smiling despite herself.

She gets a reply in the form of an elated laugh and a ghost spinning in circles in the air, holding her translucent hands to her mouth as if that will cover up the sound. “The name matters a lot to me, you see? I hadn’t had a name, or at least one that I remembered, until now. So it means a lot to me that you would pick a name for me! And it’s one that I really like. You know why?” She asks Sakura.

Sakura nods. “Because you get to make sun puns?”

“Because I get to make sun puns.” She parrots back. “I love my name. I gotta ask, where’d you get it from?”

Sakura hums, in a contemplative mood. She’d originally thought to use _日光_ because, y’know, they’re a clan that derives their power from the sun, and so ‘sunlight’ didn’t seem too far of a reach, right? Besides, Nikko sounded nice. But then she’d seen the little creation in the night. And she’s thought about it a little more. And she’d changed her mind.

“Mm, I suppose it just came to me, Akino-chan.” Sakura replies, trying to run her comb through her hair, still not having looked back. “It just seemed fitting. The ‘rising sun’ for you, get it?”

For the ghost who’d died once and had risen again. For the new dawn, signifying a new day, a new life. For the one who could create life itself, even if small in size. For the ghost who’d helped her get through the night, of sorts, teaching her and mentoring her in jutsus and arts unknown to her, brought with the clan to death’s eternal slumber, only to rouse again.

But she doesn’t mention any of this to Akino. It might seem like too much pressure. And so Sakura only smiles at her mentor-sister-family(?). “Don’t worry about it! If you like the name, then that’s all that matters.”

Akino-chan nods hesitantly, a nervous smile on her face. “Okay.” She replies.

  
(࿏)  
  


(“But can the sun truly coexist with the moon?” A female voice whispers, eyes gleaming a warm bronze. The library is silent around her, save for the whistling of wind through the room, even as no draft exists with the windows shut.

Another figure scoffs, rolling his warm orange eyes. “You’re asking the wrong questions, _sister_. The real issue is whether the moon can shine brighter than a comet, both vying for the sun’s mortal love.”

“Well, I’m sorry, brother. But we weren’t all jaded when we died. Some of us had friends in the clan and weren’t wastes of space.” The female voice retorts.

The third and final person in the room sighs at what her two children are doing, bickering like five year olds, her chest heaving as she struggles to breathe. Really, she misses her _other_ —oh, nevermind. She doesn't quite exist anymore, at least, not in the way that she wants the most. She is like a comet in the atmosphere, burning bright and lovely in the sky, but fading quick all the same. At least her two children and her are little stars, distant but twinkling bright. They may never be able to interact with the sun, but they can look on from a distance as the sun and the Earth and the Moon and all the other little planets orbit around her. She can already see a tentative Earth and Mercury, one able to be trusted with the sun’s other half, and the other calm and steady, reassuring and constant, never truly far. She’ll do well.

She places a hand on her ribcage, transparent just like her and the two other people in the room. They look at her with gazes full of worry, but she waves their concerns away. “Just from the memories long ago.” They nod, the teenage boy glaring at her hand as if it’s personally offended him and the little girl staring off into the distance, where the only interesting thing in the house is happening.

She catches her breath, coughing for a moment before settling down. Neither of her kids mention how the poison in her chest is seeping outwards, wrapping its disgusting black tentacles around her waist and starting to climb her arms, nearing her neck, like an impending noose. She coughs once more. “Just hope that the moon understands the fleeting nature of a comet that burns bright and spreads sparks in the sky like a paint swatch.”

She turns to the window, wondering where her little niece is. The night outside is dark, but each of the people outside, the people she once cared for and considered hers, glow faintly, like little lightsticks, auras warm and slightly hazy. There are golds and reds and oranges and yellows, but they are all slightly different, perhaps a tad darker or a pinch lighter, here and there. She doesn’t turn back to her two children, knowing that the silence in the Library says all that she has to know about whether they are paying attention. She sighs. She’s been doing that a lot recently, ever since her children told her about who had appeared in the Library, after years and decades of not seeing her.

She sighs again, feeling the weight of her childrens’ eyes on the back of her neck. “Hope for that at least.” She murmurs and the house falls quiet with a hush, as if contemplating the stars and the sky and the _sun_ and the _moon_ and the constellations with her.

“Hush for now, my dear children. There is much to do and few to do it. The sun and the moon are aligning and we ought to prepare for the end of the old and help usher in the beginning of the new.” Her two little _prodigal_ stars nod, first at her, then at each other, understanding the hidden meaning behind her words.

“Mother, is that wise?” Her son asks, a bitter undertone seeping through his veiled honey. He still hasn’t forgiven her, she supposes. Or himself, for that matter. “If the _sun_ cannot handle what is to come, then the sky will go dark.”

Her daughter interjects, always eager to prove her brother wrong, driven by anger and zealousness in her beliefs; in their beliefs. “If the sun cannot survive a measly little thing like a tie to the moon, then she does not deserve to light the sky as a beacon for those who follow!”

“You didn’t survive. Does that mean you weren’t worthy either?” Her boy spits out, real venom and hurt in his tone.

Her daughter gasps in disbelief, before it gives way to anger. “At least I could attempt the trial! You were never even considered for it!” And with that she sits down in a corner of the Library. She probably would have tried to float out of the room, but as the blood seals keep intruders out, so too do they keep prisoners in.

She glances back at her daughter and her son, who’s now scowling in the opposite corner, diagonally across from her other child, before turning back to the window. Her hand tries to move the curtain on instinct, but it slips through, like sand in her hands or time through her grasp, with her desperately trying to close her fingers but the seconds slipping through the cracks.

Only time will tell if she’s made the right decisions, she supposes.

As the sun starts to rise, the light starting to seep into the library, she repeats it to herself like it is her lifeline, because it very well might be. She may have just doomed her clan to extinction forever, as they have this one chance left and she may have just squandered the rest of the universe’s good will, but again—only time will tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! Did you enjoy it? I hope you did! (No long rambling end note this time, sorry!)
> 
> If you enjoyed, leave a kudos! Oh, and talk to me in the comments! I love to see if you guys enjoyed it!


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